Mother´s Day

Mother's Day:

A Time to Celebrate Those

Who Made us Moms

Thank you to IT Words of Womyn 2016 Anthology for

publishing this poem and to Press Women of Texas for awarding

it First Place in Single Verse for 2016. Dedicated, of course, to

the fierce, bright soul that came to me disguised as my son. 

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BIRTH BY EMERGENCY

Day 1

Under surveillance, I am

monitored moment by moment.

Beeps, flashes, signs,

green, red and blue lines.

It’s supposed to be:  go, baby, go,

supposed to be 20 hours ago,

but we’re going

nowhere−

my mouth−dry air

my eyes−drift shut

There:  baby in a bin

where did he come from,

this soul ground from mine

and from time, its rhythm

interrupted for this bundle of boy?

Behind dark eyes, his mystery mind

stares at the light. What does he see

when he looks at me?

Day 2

Confused by fever

bewildered after birth, I

do not know the spark in husband’s eye

is for the other woman: man on the run.

He must leave now, says he will go

back to med school, emergency ed class,
must learnabout emergencies.   “
But,” I said, I’m an emergency.

I am one.”   I am

alone, cannot lift child

cannot quench his appetite,

take out the tubes or

extract the needles.

They take him away now

and bring me a cup of ice.

Day 3

The woman in white returns him to me,

big—almost 11 pounds—but also little,

being just three days’ new.

He lies at my side and

we know one soft cool moment

inside the pressure of searing pain

and the fever’s prickly burn

Skin on skin, my newborn son,

absorb what I cannot say,

these thoughts not only of love

but under love as well,

bond before bonds,

rock beneath the road

we are yet to travel

Someday you will sing, gigantito,

notes as deep as your eyes, dark and pure.

Teach me the notes again and again,

new-come child, someday man,

clutch my finger with your hand

as my arms surround you and my eyes watch you

slip slumbering into the womb of sleep:

let me treasure and remember this brief peace

the one we know now before

the world will have you and

the future stake its claim

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