tishjones

I imagined her stretched out and weeping over her womb on a stretcher,
Shaking. Scared. Steadily, whispering wants to her wished As the ambulance whisked through the dark of morning. The son had not come yet.
When I arrived my sister lay, covered in blues,
Body bound to the hospital bed, belly big with life still living. Water, just about to burst, she beckoned my hand.
I stood beside a gripping moment, hard to grasp: Her
Pushing while pulling,
My nephew’s heart, beat, like surround sound, bouncing through
all the silence on our tongues.
In a room relatively decorated and full of relatives, Some bodies stood still like statues,
Hard to feel, once his heart stopped, it was cold. And lifeless.
My nephew was born. After dying.
In the maternity ward at St. John’s Hospital.
My mother tucked his itty bitty brown body tightly into a purple
blanket,
Placed him gently into my sister’s arms,
And I cried as if there was no sun in the room.

Posted in: Memories