Door in the Mountain. Jean Valentine

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       Afterbirth

      I loiter in the eye of the Slough,

      Every joint aching for sleep;

      The sky, inhumanly deep,

      Sarcastically casts back the Slough.

      Did my child take breath to cry

      At the slick hand that hooked her out,

      Or cry to breathe? or did she lie

      Still in her private dark, curled taut

      Under her sleep's hobgoblin shout?

      Anesthesia blew me out:

      I gardened shadows in my lost crib

      While they took her from me like a rib.

      Swaddled and barred, she curls in sleep

      At the dry edge of mortality.

      If the sky's side proves too steep

      Who will take up the little old lady,

      Who will call her by her name

      When she's a crumble of bones?

      What logos lights the filament of time,

      Carbon arc fusing birth-stone to head-stone?

      The mud pulls harder: the stepping stones

      Shake in front of my swimming eyes.

      There dear, there dear, here's a pill:

      Sleep, sleep, all will be well:

      Lull-lullaby.