Tag: birth

Postpartum

Skin stretched, stitched, sore.
Breasts tender, engorged.
Belly empty,
while organs
rearrange themselves.

Oh travel weary vessel,
victorious glorious
carrier of new life.
Precious cargo,
wrenched away, disgorged.

As fluids leak
and muscles scream,
dare I celebrate these scars?
Adorn these wobbles
with joy?

Pregnancy robbed me of reason,
birth affirmed my strength.
Body broken and beautiful.

Birth

And then I
am floating
on the hospital ceiling.
Looking down
at my body.
Naked,
open,
centre-stage.
It’s pretty biological.
Must be the fucking
gas and air.

What’s that
war film where they
go into slo-mo?
There’s a beach,
must’ve D-day,
or b-day,
Or VBAC day
(chortle).

Down there
by my body,
people gather
round my vagina
Like it’s a camp-fire.

A midwife pauses,
waiting like a surfer
for the next wave.
It will come.
Oh fuck not yet.
Leave me up here
a little longer.

The door opens
and it rushes in.
Sweeping me
down from the ceiling.
Back,
all of me united in
dark, purple pushing.

Well I thought I might as well start as I mean to go on. With the real stuff that is birth. VBAC stands for vaginal birth after cesarean, which is how my second little one came into the world.