Motherhood

She sat on a shelf,

her breasts two bellies

on her poked-out belly,

on which the navel looked

like a sucked-in mouth—

her knees bent and apart,

her long left arm raised,

with the large hand knuckled

to a bar in the ceiling—

her right hand clamping

the skinny infant to her chest—

its round, pale, new,

soft muzzle hunting

in the brown hair for a nipple,

its splayed, tiny hand picking

at her naked, dirty ear.

Twisting its little neck,

with tortured, ecstatic eyes

the size of lentils, it looked

into her severe, close-set,

solemn eyes, that beneath bald

eyelids glared—dull lights

in sockets of leather.

She twitched some chin-hairs,

with pain or pleasure,

as the baby-mouth found and

yanked at her nipple;

its pink-nailed, jointless

fingers, wandering her face,

tangled in the tufts

of her cliffy brows.

She brought her big

hand down from the bar

with pretended exasperation

unfastened the little hand,

and locked it within her palm—

while her right hand

with snag-nailed forefinger

and short, sharp thumb, raked

the new orange hair

of the infant’s skinny flank—

and found a louse,

which she lipped, and

thoughtfully crisped

between broad teeth.

She wrinkled appreciative

nostrils which, without a nose,

stood open—damp holes

above the poke of her mouth.

She licked her lips, flicked

her leather eyelids—

then, suddenly flung

up both arms and grabbed

the bars overhead.

The baby's scrabbly fingers

instantly caught the hair—

as if there were metal rings there—

in her long, stretched armpits.

And, as she stately swung,

and then proudly, more swiftly

slung herself from corner

to corner of her cell—

arms longer than her round

body, short knees bent—

her little wild-haired,

poke-mouthed infant hung,

like some sort of trophy,

or decoration, or shaggy medal—

shaped like herself—but new,

clean, soft and shining

on her chest.

Copyright Credit: May Swenson, “Motherhood” from Nature: Poems Old and New. Copyright © 1994 by May Swenson. Reprinted with the permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Source: Nature: Poems Old and New (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1994)