Having won the game of patience seven times
and lost four
I re-rubberband the deck
my legs writhe restlessly, straighten
and rise wobbily to stand on dusty gray linoleum tiles
soles balance my weight, my soul my wait
which pleases the labor room nurse (who holds all power)
“Look how limber she is! Jumped right off that bed!
Good idea, walk . . . walk . . . that’ll get that baby out!
Ring if you need me!”
from a great distance it seems she bubbles
and waves, and waves
thus grounded perhaps in control of my destiny,
the sullen indignities of these hours cumbrous
on my unseen feet yellow with cold I imagine
that walk a crescent fertile and horseshoe-shaped
around the bed and back, around and back;
above, my yet unbirthed motherspirit
listens to seasons from the swimmer within.
After countless paced crescents she startles me,
an old woman with lined elm bark face and calm eyes
watching me through a small window in the wall
“Grandmother?” I wonder, heartened
by this visit I have wished for in my dreams
since the day she died two months
into my own conception
then realize the window is a mirror,
and I an ageless crone at twenty-two.
In that dimension past where numbers end
but not this walk and wait, yoked to this time
and clutching to each hip a fabric bouquet
blue fleur-de-lis on a tattered hospital gown
barefoot left crescent turn right crescent turn
as the waves crest break recede, crest break recede
and halt
silence.
Where are the seasounds?
I have worn a shining silver omega
that frames the bed, gray linoleum buffed
and polished by my blessedly pain-free feet
that now step cautiously past my cronehood
and syncopate dustily toward my husband,
who sleeps in a harvest gold vinyl chair with chrome legs
“Can you hear that?” I inhale to form the words
“I can’t hear the seasounds anymore.”
but in that breath the swimmer turns, the silence breaks
with a pop as water rushes, flooding my cold yellow feet
with warm waves that carry dust bunnies
from beneath the bed to the corners of the room
out the door and down the corridor
to the nurses’ station.
I complete my inhalation. Should I ring?
“Did you hear something?” my husband asks
through the pitch of the rippling sea
“Did you hear something?” he asks the girl I used to be.