I'm finally writing!!!

Dilated To Eight

(revised poem from 5 years ago)

Gravel-etched, worn hooves scrape the ripe
insides of my womb like unruly, unbroke
Stallions thrashing in a caged fence being
branded by red iron. I buckle over on all fours
to the slick floor and scream as a candy-striper
grips my monstrous girth with nails razor-edged
and painted like a Rodeo Drive hooker. She lifts
me into the wheelchair and barks incoherent
slang into my ears as a Sheltie would yap
into the fur-trimmed ears of sheep. I am wheeled
into the delivery room, botched metal wheels slanting
sideways, the scrape of metal on tile, tile on top
of wooden planks, wood covering concrete mounting
a full foot above soil. New surface upon old, synthetic
upon nature. Stinger-nosed needles fly in front
of my eyes and prick my skin sweating a sour apple
vapor. They puncture the shape of a semi-colon below
my bicep, grape-veined as if a hookworm drenched
in Chianti crocheted it with a drunk thread. The nurse,
an impatient dame of unmentionable age yanks
my legs apart and props them in the stirrups. “Push,”
I hear. “Bear down, girl,” I hear through mechanical
pulsing of blips on screens, the crisp rustling of curtains
opening, closing, opening again, screams of death
and life behind partitions separating rooms, distancing
our donations to the world. We shriek, thrash, lay
defenseless on our backs like grasshoppers turned
onto their wings in the grass, dependant on unskilled
hands to turn the feet back to ground. At last,
a frame, a hairless pointed cone, violet-seamed eyes,
prune-skinned toes, testicles the size of plums pushes
through my boned barriers into the nurse’s knotty-
pined hands. Dusk has crept in through the blinds,
smearing copper shadows against the wall once
a seedless melon hue. “Hello, you.” Who will you be
besides this mesh of thrift-store limbs, recycled
from my loins as an arch-angel with veiled wings
and a halo resigned to taper off as you age?
I will bundle you in woolen quilts before the frost
of night can chill. I will, my love. Lavish you
with lullabies, the sweet humming through the softening
of my throat. All, my child will be soft now.