The Birthing

A wrinkled fleshly fruit plucked out of my womb
They asked me if I want to look and feel and hold
Angry, I turned my head away, an emphatic no
For the pain the wriggling brat had given me so

I with my legs held apart like a beast in twin stirrups’
Prodded and pressured to push and press the demon out
Searing pain and bloody mucus, half drugged, spirit in tatters
A ten pounder stuck end stage in a flaming pounding rear

Then a pleading, a howling, a crying in desperation
Begging the doctor for an end to this assault and oblivion
The kindly forceps and gas delivers him in parenthesis
Of a wait of eighteen hours bullied, harried in dreadful agony
Waking up nauseous half broken, and bleeding,
Bloody wreck, weak, wracked in pain and wondering
Why I chose such hard and tortuous hurtful course

Later, resting on my back I steal a furtive glance
At the still small form lying in a crib next to mine
Face set in sleep, so helpless with stubborn pouting lip
Then am I suddenly swept to him by a surge of love
Like the spurt of milk spilling out of roused inverted nipples
Inexorable as the waves of the sea that pound the shore
And as old as the hills that shaped our ancient worlds,