Santa Monica Birth
By Lisa C. Krueger
Someone decapitated all Birds of Paradise
along Ocean Avenue; strollers and shoes
trample the discarded beaks. She keeps walking.
At noon a hallway speaker booms
Code Blue Code Blue one minute
before her grandson is born.
In the evening, a nurse hands him
to her: clean, swaddled, murmuring:
the fullness of his being spears her.
Why didn’t I pick them up? she wonders,
arms tightening around the infant,
whispers I still carry you! to her son
when he comes to take his child.
Copyright Credit: Lisa C. Krueger, "Santa Monica Birth" from Run Away to the Yard. Copyright © 2017 by Lisa C. Krueger. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.
Source: Run Away to the Yard (Red Hen Press, 2017)