06-14-2013, 05:14 AM
I know it's bad form to reply to your own post. But: please don't let the subject matter stop you from offering a technical or aesthetic critique.
Also, some readers have interpreted it in such a way that I never saw Lincoln again after the labor. An earlier version has a middle section where I saw and held him after he died. I excised it, thinking that the last section with the regret was really only related to the first section, since the regret was that I didn't touch him in that minute he was alive. Now that I think about it, there was more fear than sadness in the birthing room, since everything went so fast. It wasn't until after that I broke down.
I think that makes the above version sound more emotionally detached, so I'm posting the alternate version below with the middle section included. Maybe someone here will have an opinion about leaving it in or not.
Lincoln's Birthday (middle section restored)
For eighteen weeks, I had an unborn son.
At an exam, the doctor scanned
his mother's womb. A veiled foot
stuck out its open door.
Too soon.
Racing my wife through city blocks,
each stop sign seemed to take an hour.
At the Maternal ER, upon a birthing bed,
her water broke.
"Just gently stroke her hair",
the nurses said, "and look away."
The only sense I had was what they lent,
so I obeyed.
Christine and I, we grasped
each other's hands. I tried to keep my eyes
locked on her wet and twisting face,
but to one side, just out of focus, brightly lit,
I saw blood on pinkish skin.
The boy slipped out, too young.
He died.
My wife's work was just half done
when nurses took the boy away.
They took me too,
and after a time, they led me
to a quiet room where Lincoln
and I first met, alone.
I sat and couldn't rise.
I fixed my eyes upon his bassinet,
and staring through its clear plastic walls,
I saw his blanket,
striped pink and blue.
When the doctor finally showed,
I couldn't speak;
I bit my hand.
Something gripped my throat
until my teeth let go,
then tears surged out.
When the shaking stopped,
she handed him to me still wrapped
and said some words I soon forgot.
Then she left.
I peeked inside, afraid
to find some unformed
thing. His skin was dark
as though a nearby light had dimmed,
but nurses washed
away the blood. Relieved,
I watched his face
and studied every tiny limb.
I've since loved two other sons,
but they're no cure for this regret:
In that bit of time that Lincoln lived
to feel and maybe hear,
before they cut the cord and all went numb—
I looked away.
I did what I was told. For what?
A "sterile field"?
But if I think the nurses' hands
were there to work and not to love—
God damn!
I should've shoved my arm
through all that fuss between the stirrups
where he died
and put a hand upon my son
to say, "Daddy loves you, go in peace."
What now to touch?
A onesie that will never fit
or prints inked by little feet?
Too late. He'll never be that close again.
Also, some readers have interpreted it in such a way that I never saw Lincoln again after the labor. An earlier version has a middle section where I saw and held him after he died. I excised it, thinking that the last section with the regret was really only related to the first section, since the regret was that I didn't touch him in that minute he was alive. Now that I think about it, there was more fear than sadness in the birthing room, since everything went so fast. It wasn't until after that I broke down.
I think that makes the above version sound more emotionally detached, so I'm posting the alternate version below with the middle section included. Maybe someone here will have an opinion about leaving it in or not.
Lincoln's Birthday (middle section restored)
For eighteen weeks, I had an unborn son.
At an exam, the doctor scanned
his mother's womb. A veiled foot
stuck out its open door.
Too soon.
Racing my wife through city blocks,
each stop sign seemed to take an hour.
At the Maternal ER, upon a birthing bed,
her water broke.
"Just gently stroke her hair",
the nurses said, "and look away."
The only sense I had was what they lent,
so I obeyed.
Christine and I, we grasped
each other's hands. I tried to keep my eyes
locked on her wet and twisting face,
but to one side, just out of focus, brightly lit,
I saw blood on pinkish skin.
The boy slipped out, too young.
He died.
My wife's work was just half done
when nurses took the boy away.
They took me too,
and after a time, they led me
to a quiet room where Lincoln
and I first met, alone.
I sat and couldn't rise.
I fixed my eyes upon his bassinet,
and staring through its clear plastic walls,
I saw his blanket,
striped pink and blue.
When the doctor finally showed,
I couldn't speak;
I bit my hand.
Something gripped my throat
until my teeth let go,
then tears surged out.
When the shaking stopped,
she handed him to me still wrapped
and said some words I soon forgot.
Then she left.
I peeked inside, afraid
to find some unformed
thing. His skin was dark
as though a nearby light had dimmed,
but nurses washed
away the blood. Relieved,
I watched his face
and studied every tiny limb.
I've since loved two other sons,
but they're no cure for this regret:
In that bit of time that Lincoln lived
to feel and maybe hear,
before they cut the cord and all went numb—
I looked away.
I did what I was told. For what?
A "sterile field"?
But if I think the nurses' hands
were there to work and not to love—
God damn!
I should've shoved my arm
through all that fuss between the stirrups
where he died
and put a hand upon my son
to say, "Daddy loves you, go in peace."
What now to touch?
A onesie that will never fit
or prints inked by little feet?
Too late. He'll never be that close again.