Birthing

I don’t want a team of hyper-emotional
family members lined up like third-rate,
clean-showered basketball players
benched on the sidelines sitting
there watching with avid intensity
as I pass a slithering
infant into the bright, cold world.

Does not appeal to me.

I would prefer a warm, dim
place, perhaps in a large cardboard
box with a clean towel and maybe
a bowl of water with only one
vaguely active participant
that just sort of checks in once
in awhile, but never actually
looks at anything.

My sister apparently likes people
to see her in such a condition, she
sent out invitations, served tea and
cookies between contractions, and when
she clamped down the baby came
gushing out with various ooze and
the audience cried and gave them both
a standing ovation.

My best friend lobbed throwing stars
at our heads whenever we peeked
in because the nurse kept telling us
the bellowing pregnant woman
in Room 8 wanted us to come in
so finally we figured it out and waited
for them to muzzle and strap her down
and take the baby out like the new mommy
was a box and I kept thinking if I were
there to see it would there be pink tissue
paper poking out and a little card attached
to her toe that read, “It’s a girl”?

Dobermans do it best.
They lie down, grunt some, and out
squirt little sausages across the cement
floor and you go get them, bring them
to mother-dog and she tears the sack
and there’s a squirming puppy with tiny
soft nails and wet fur and the mother
eats the sack, cleans the puppy and almost
never gets the two mixed up.

I wouldn’t mind the hospital so much:
monitors, needles, the undeniable reek of
death even on the pastel painted nursery ward.
I’d only ask for ice chips, an epidural,
and a gun for any wet-nosed family member
that dares break the one mile radius rule.

After all, this is business.