Ageless is a mother’s love (edited)

[justcloudy]

edit

The wait room in the clinic smelled
the mucus on my baby’s breath
as she hacked it from her lungs
(or tried).
I breathed prayers into her wispy hair
undulating off the rhythm
of the clock, slime-stuck at nine.
 
The wait room in the clinic heard
a shuffle and a steady stride:
a mirror held by future’s hands.
A creviced face with mothers eyes
echoed the anguish in my mind
and bent over greying hair to dab
tears off her baby, forty-five.


Original

The wait room in the clinic smelled
the mucus on my baby’s breath
as she hacked it from her lungs
(or tried).
I breathed prayers into her wispy hair
undulating off the rhythm
of the clock, slime-stuck at nine.
 
The wait room in the clinic heard
a shuffle and a steady stride;
a mirror held by future’s hands.
A creviced face and deep set eyes
locked with the anguish in my own.
She breathed comfort into greying hair,
of her baby, forty-five.

[Leanne]

Loving the personification of the waiting room -- it does feel like a living entity, and a mother feels like a penitent desperately waiting to absolve herself of the sin of allowing her child to become ill.

And ageless indeed. Mothers know, and are mothers forever.

[kolemath]

I love the tone of this poem, but i'm having trouble telling who's who. I hear a mother caring for an infant and a daughter caring for an aging mother.  Was this your intention? blending this generational care? S1 is led by 'i' S2 shifts into 'my own' with a 'she' to close.  maybe work on clarifying the poem's speaker?

powerful opening lines!!!

maybe work on the wordiness of 'as she hacked it from her lungs' ? as her lungs hacked ....

Love future's mirror!

[justcloudy]

Kole, thanks for pointing out your confusion, I can see that now. Your narrative isn't quite what I was going for (though close). I'll work on making that more clear in the revision, thank you!

Leanne, I hesitated on the title as it's honestly a bit cheesy, but that doesn't make it any less true.

[RiverNotch]

The wait room in the clinic smelled
the mucus on my baby’s breath
as she hacked it from her lungs
(or tried).
I breathed prayers into her wispy hair
undulating off the rhythm The rhythm gets a bit wonky with this and the preceding line (in fact, especially the preceding line), but it's somewhat excusable, especially since it establishes well that different sense of, er, time.
of the clock, slime-stuck at nine. I love the rhyme here with 'tried', really pulls together "slime-stuck".
 
The wait room in the clinic heard
a shuffle and a steady stride; Not sure if the semicolon works here, but then I have a love affair with em dashes -- or maybe a colon? What exactly is the mirror here? I read the room, which I agree does come alive.
a mirror held by future’s hands.
A creviced face and deep set eyes
locked with the anguish in my own. Not sure if this should be a sentence all its own; in fact, I do think that you get a few (admittedly minor) problems of clarity this stanza, culminating here: that is, I do feel that this line kinda muddles who the she and the greying hair is in the next line (I'm assuming the mother's the one who's much older than forty-five?)
She breathed comfort into greying hair, Ugh, Brits. xD
of her baby, forty-five. Although maybe this is an indication: nine over two is four point five.

And the title may be cheese, but it's Brie.

[Marymic]

[quote='justcloudy' pid='211323' dateline='1464477039']
The wait room in the clinic smelled
the mucus on my baby’s breath
as she hacked it from her lungs
(or tried).
I breathed prayers into her wispy hair
undulating off the rhythm
of the clock, slime-stuck at nine.
 
The wait room in the clinic heard
a shuffle and a steady stride;
a mirror held by future’s hands.
A creviced face and deep set eyes
locked with the anguish in my own.
She breathed comfort into greying hair,
of her baby, forty-five.

I love also the personification of the waiting room, and the alliteration in 'a shuffle and a steady stride
I find it hard to get the message, is it the grandmother that comes in to comfort? or forty five years on....

[justcloudy]

Thanks both RN and Mary! I appreciate the time you took. =]

-jc

PS yay for Brie!
PPS edit now posted above