Wednesday, June 29, 2022

MEMORY

Lift me to the ceiling--

a whale swimming through air--

exposed belly containing twice the life.

Grab the monitors. 

Push the medicine.

Labor at 30 weeks is no joke.


Hurry, take off your clothes

Roll to the side and back again.

When was the last wave you rode?

Nurses rush around me, 

flowing and eddying around my bed,

taking notes, getting me ready for the doctor.


Helpless. Exposed.

I turn to your blue eyes,

hoping to find safe water.

Looking to the one 

who knows me,

who transformed me 

into a creature who swims 

through the air in hospital rooms.

But the blue is cloudy with

the darkness of truth.


Nothing he can do. 

Nothing I can do. 


Lower me down,

tie me to the bed,

dam the waves. 

Inject steroids,

place a line or two,

slow drip.


Wait and see

if the girls in me

want to swim through

the air

like their mother. 


-Melissa Reynolds

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