In the darkness I labored,

there, in the tub, like Tiamat,

whale-like, floundering, confused

by my own lack of reaction.

With the dawn came a twinge

but nothing more - it couldn't

be called pain, exactly - I flopped over

the ball, the chair, praying

to no deity in particular,

reading the daily horoscope

and shrugging off the annoying attentions

of the midwives. They pitted me

when I was too slow; the Nubain

made me smile. And then finally

there was pain - but not

where we'd expected it, oh no,

the pain was in my head, 

a fully-armed warrior fighting

to escape. No longer myself,

I cried and fumed and fainted

and woke up strapped to a bed, 

immobilized by a needle in my spine.

They might have pierced me to the heart, 

but the spine was good enough - 

I was in no danger of going anywhere.

The monitor bleeped in the darkness

and informed me of transition.

Sooner or later we'd have to cross over

and it had better be sooner, 

for their sake. The nurses were impatient.

It's hard to push when you're staked

to a bed. I tried scrambling to my knees

but there was no room to open my legs, 

I might knock something over; no room

to settle my lover on the bed to be

my chair. Supine, indignant, I grunted

and screamed and cursed and scared

the other mothers convalescing

in nearby rooms. It was a relief to everybody

when after a mere three hours

and the head at minus two, I begged for the knife. 

No matter how many 

are in the operating theatre, how crowded, 

it's just you and your words and the thing

waiting to be born, failing to find passage

into the world. The right side of my body

felt the scalding hot touch of the scalpel;

I needed more - more drugs, more help, 

more energy. I shook from cold

and inhaled greedily when they put the mask

on my face, sucking oblivion

as if it were sweet lemon phosphate.

Gone: the world winked out at thirteen

or maybe it was seventeen; no matter.

I floated in chaos, dead to myself

and my exposed entrails, and when I awoke

I had a daughter. I do not remember

seeing her. I named her for wisdom.

The first time I saw myself in the mirror,

after I came back, I did not recognize

my own face. I was an alien 

with puffed cheeks, bleared eyes, wan skin

like a cadaver. My belly was empty

and hurt where it had been sliced open,

the womb scooped out through ropes of intestine

and cleaned with snow and replaced. 

My hair brown and rank and slimy

as guts. My breath grave and hinting

of rot. My ability to create tapestries

from words had left. I watched mute

as my child was brought to my breast, 

and wondered that such a dead thing as I

could bring forth life.