Birth Poem

Amidst a phalanx of machinery
blinking green lights
blood pressure cuffs
IVs and needles
efficient squeaky shoes

Me: a glowing, sweating, super-charged galaxy
a portal, opening to admit
one new body,
freshly made
into this world.

I draw on every strength I have ever possessed and
push my insides out
down out down out

And then you are in my arms!
Slippery, red, angry—
a stranger to my eyes, yet
the indomitable spirit
I have come to know so well.

When you are cut free I get my body back but
a body changed,
once a supernova
part of me dying
new life dawning

Now a proof to the power of my own body to birth
unaided by those blinking green lights
held by your father, the doula, the midwife,
you and me—
you and me.