Men of Midwives

Dave gave me this poem for Mother's Day yesterday that he wrote.

MEN OF MIDWIVES

There on the floor, a rumpled sheet of skin,

what can I do? Pick you up, make it go away?

Feed you words about pain?

You were not born of this disease of blood.

You did not inherit it, do not own it. It found you

one day behind the shed, behind

the bottling plant back of your house

where trains ducked in and turned around.

You were roller skating in pink shorts,

T-shirt, yellow hair twisted in a tail.

Your mother cried when you told her

because you were too young and the world

only grew harder.

She knew that pain but not your pain.

What is your pain like?

You tried to tell me once, said it was like sound

bending around light, but not quite, because sound

bent round light sounds almost good.

It’s like a scream twisted in fire, a steel rod

dipped in that scream and pierced through your side.

Your body hangs on a spit. You turn in the flame,

cook a faithless red.

What am I do to for you, midwife? I’m to sit

on the floor, bring you water, a damp cloth,

bitter root to chew.

I’m to hold the space of your gaze, the mirror

of your face. Crouch like a cat

as you breathe through the pain.