Birth of My Daughter

Paralyzed in death-like light
I'm as helpless as a mental patient.
A fat sack, weighted and tied
by my feet like a twenty-year old ragdoll.
They all chant: "You can do it!"
They don't mean it.
To them I'm nothing more than a number.
My mother who wasn't a mother at all
leaves me with a pack of anonymous nurses.
I escape to the ceiling tiles,
floating through patterns above my pain,
waiting to hear that I'm alive,
that I can come back down again.
The sharp break of a child's cry
wakes me from a near-death dream.
My baby and me among
the busy-bee doctors, stitching
and washing with concentrated urgency,
are safe and quiet now.
Our eyes say, "Yes, I know you."
We take comfort in
our mutual helplessness.