out for dinner

celebrate your thirty-third birthday three weeks after the birth of our son – a pulsing, :flooding gush of blood

a crowning head from your body torn open

by his entry into our lives

you are more beautiful to me than ever

nursing breasts swollen with milk nipples still sore, from suckling the baby

belly shrinking, distended with stretch marks,

red stencils of her passage into motherhood

I wonder if you notice

how much you have changed since this conception.

months of wondering if this baby might survive

unlike our first.

Anxiety combines with nausea bloating, cramps

intermingled bleeding

rub vitamin E oils over distended bellyskin massage your lower back

your  mind – some other place

parenting classes, breathing exercises

sit with pillows on the floor, mark moments on our watches count the time between contractions

what to do when the water breaks

a packed bag – toothbrush change of clothing hospital stuff

then the day of the birth race home from work

find you already gone by taxi your bag still in the closet

all our lessons together already abandoned with your frilly gown

and brand new toothbrush

arrive at the  hospital after a sixty mile an hour drive across the city beginnings of rush hour.

I am terrified

I am going to miss being with you

to share in the birth of our child

when I arrive you complain

I’m never around when you need me but before you land any real blows you clench back a howl

from the pain of a contraction .

I hold your hand while your eyes glaze over momentarily

before you return from your journey into pain to look up at me

from your seat in the shower in the maternity ward

the rest of the long night blur of nurses and midwives, friends come by to see you

some stay through the birth

others leave at the first real signs of birth – the final minutes

unable to face

the overpower physical reality of it

during the breathing counts your eyes are locked onto mine

it feels like our souls are glued to each other by going through this passage together

it is the only way we can face this pain

is if you can concentrate your focus on my eyes, counting

panting together

a counterpoint to intercourse a body passion to expel

what we have inspired in your womb

in the final moments

fully dilated, ready to push flushed, fearful, pressed angry, hopeful

you are enraged when a nurse

scratches your thigh with a protruding fingernail

swear like a trucker

during the final push when the baby’s head passes out of your body

the rest of his little torso

is expelled from you like sausage from a meatmaker

part of me is repulsed

by the whole damn thing, but I am also

drawn in

by its sheer immensity

afterward

in the visitors room the relatives

noisily visit mama and baby

I finally go home

too exhausted to notice when I say goodnight

and kiss you on the cheek

you barely nod in my direction our son sucks

on breasts newly sprung triggered by the baby’s need.

out for dinner

three weeks after the birth of the baby you sit back in your chair

suckling the baby

even more of a stranger to me now than before our first embrace