NICU, For Dominic Edit #2.1

[Municipal Alchemist]

This is a beautifully written sonnet, one that flows naturally within the form without drawing to much attention to the structure. My strategy here is to recommend some small changes to words that I think help with clarity/sentence structure without sacrificing the form. If you feel they're too much of a departure from what you want, that is totally your call. Hope it helps! This is a deeply emotional and delicate poem (quite like its topic), so I'm trying to keep those aspects intact. It's lovely to read.

NICU, for Dominic   Edit #1


You breathe, we hold ours with ours held ready for a fall;
we watch you lifted from your mother's womb
and exhale as we hear a raucous bawl.
I count the possibilities of doom
upon your toes, my abacus; (shifting) lines I'm not sold on shifting. It fits the tone, but is a little confusing in the narrative.
of on monitors and regulators beep
their a sharp cacophony of vital signs. "their" feels to harsh for an unstressed syllable
You dance the limbo of sedated sleep,
machines to graph the mysteries of dreams.
I travel trace the lines along plump soft palms, your future grand "plump" should be unstressed, soft is also stressed, but the assonance with "palms" disguises that a bit more
achievements, sweet affairs and daring schemes,
your secret strengths revealed in each small hand.
You'll be the death of us, or our deepest pride, I'm not a parent, but I think any child is both. Revel in the contradiction! But is it a contradiction? A parent's pride comes from their child surpassing them, taking their place as they move into the world.
like any other child, just but multiplied.

That ended up being more edits than I thought! This is my own stylistic take on your poem, using what you had as a guide, so approach it only as an interpretation.