Birthday
After the warm water between my legs.
After I buzz the nurses station to tell them.
After I call your father and tell him to get his ass to the hospital.
After the Demerol seeps and burns its way into my skin.
After the potocin contractions grip my stomach like a vise.
After the potocin iiiiiiiiiiicontractionsiiiiiiiiiii
grip.
After the potocin iiiiiiiiiiicontractions
After the epidural procedure (taught to a student) is injected.
After the internal monitor, and after your father’s white face,
After the doctor explains that the umbilical cord
iiiiiiiiiiiaround your neck cuts off your oxygen,
After each effort my body makes to expel you.
After they scream and scream at me to push.
After I say sweetly Please shut up.
After the nurse (hands on my stomach) and I push together.
After the doctor pulls with salad spoons.
After your round head navigates the canal.
After the shock of your face up, eyes open, entrance.
After the doctor unlassos the life around your neck.
After your father cuts the cord.
After they place you for a fleeting moment in my arms and
After they whisk you off and clean you up.
After I refuse to allow my own mother in the room.
After they bring you back to me.
After all the relatives finally leave.
After you and I are alone.
After I look at you.
After the love swells my heart.
After I realize what I have done.
After I wonder how to protect you,
After iiiiiiiiiiithe wonder iiiiiiiiiiiof
what I’d done.
My Father’s Cuba
My father rises with the moon to work
in the restaurant, or bar, or rest-
taurant. Fumes from his skin soak the air as
he stumbles home under bright white stars
or blackened sky to my mother, my sister, me.
Navigating the steep stairs rouses
the anger of sugarcane fields in the
Cuba of his mind. His sickle hand
sweeps my door, and the hall light glistens his tears.
Saint Stephen's Room
On the crucifix,
His ribs punctuate our sins.
The rocking chair
still as an empty womb, sits next
to a walnut table
where the porcelain lamp preens
its smoothness on a lace
doily. Pink damask drapes sweep
iron paned windows.
A small potted plant,
eager to spread its roots, eyes
a black radiator
that guards the cool air. The brass
lamp, tarnished by util-
ity, stands under gas lights
that flee from outlets.
In the corner an arm-less
chair, wistful for a view.
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Suzanne Frischkorn lives in Connecticut with her husband and son. Her poetry has appeared in many print and online journals. Recent publications include Stirring, Free Zone Quarterly, Prose Ax, and Turtleneck. Her work is forthcoming in several online journals including Comrades, The Isle Review, Moondance - Celebrating Creative Women, Events Quarterly; and in print at: The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Mediphors - A Literary Journal of the Health Professions, and The Orange Willow Review. A first place winner of the Sundress Poetry Slam, and author of The Tactile Sense (Alpha Beat Press 1996), she is currently seeking a publisher for her second book Exhale. Visit her homepage for more of her work. |