Home Birth

by Arielle Greenberg on October 30, 2007

in Featured Artists, Poetry

Email This Article to a Friend Email This Article to a Friend

Deliver unto me a full work-up, though know
I’m fully capable of getting worked up.
Together, let’s work it through: I was delivered,
delivered you, was not delivered but worked,
labored at the crosshairs of that fat red hatch,
worked outside of the white H on blue.
This was my labor. There was never any work-up
but I worked my way into your way out,
did not give over, worked like a bolt, or was I the screw?
Or was I screwed too tight, too worked-up to let you come through?

No, I was fine, and plain.
No one doctored me, fixed me up,
a plain cake mix into a beautiful dessert.
I was left to be, undoctored. At the crosshatch
of two thin red hairs I was let to be,
be drained of my meaning.
If I ever had beauty I did not want it doctored now.
Love comes in a long open scream,
a stream, a river, a rain that is the inside hem of imagining.
Imagine the layers of ice inside a cake.

My milk wells up to pour out,
a great white sorrow, the purse of love.
It does not come unbidden from me,
some bolt of lightning from the other side of my undeliverable body.
I was not doctored, so I nursed.
I thrill to nurse. Because of you
and me there was no nurse and I nurse you still,
nurse you into stillness,
the broad white H dissecting some other sky.
The snakes work their slither around a staff
while we are unstaffed, unsnaked,
a slither of embroidered work—blood, milk—
working its path down our means.

©2006 Arielle Greenberg

Related Articles:

  1. Breastfeeding Tips
  2. Home birth? Maybe. Unassisted homebirth? No way. Never say never.
  3. Home birth/ Water birth of Judah Darwin
  4. Going Home to Birth: Birth Centers and Homebirth – Episode #3
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
blog comments powered by Disqus

Previous post:

Next post:

NOTE: This is an affiliate and advertiser supported website. That means if you buy something from a link or advertisement on this site or purchase based on our recommendation (express or implied), we may receive an affiliate commission.


The information provided on this site should not be construed as personal medical advice or instruction. No action should be taken based solely on the contents of this site. Readers should consult appropriate health professionals on any matter relating to their health and well-being.


The information and opinions provided here are believed to be accurate and sound, based on the best judgment available to the authors, but readers who fail to consult appropriate health authorities assume the risk of any injuries. The publisher is not responsible for errors or omissions.

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes