In Future Tense, the speaker, after fighting heartbreaking infertility for three years, wrestles with the joy and grief of finally becoming a mother while losing her own.
Future Tense examines the tender and tangled relationships between womanhood, motherhood, and time. Narrative in scope and intimate in tone, the collection chronicles the devastating landscape of infertility: as the speaker undergoes fertility treatment and begins the adoption process, her mother faces treatment for stage four uterine cancer.
Interrogating the intertwined joys and griefs of womanhood and motherhood--and how biology can sometimes turn against us--Thomas approaches illness and loss with clarity and care, writing with a generosity that welcomes readers in. Despite their brevity, these poems refuse despair, finding meaning and connection even in the hardest seasons of life