Birth

Miss Freeland says to keep the kids out,

that the baby is coming

and no one can enter the building

until the birthing is done.

I think about Ma

and how that birth went.

I keep the kids out and listen behind me,

praying for the sound of a baby

crying into this world,

and not the silence

my brother brought with him.

And then the cry comes

and I have to go away for a little while

and just walk off the feelings.

Miss Freeland rings the bell to call us in

but I’m not ready to come back yet.

When I do come,

I study how fine that baby girl is. How perfect,

and that she is wearing a feed-sack nightgown that
was my brother’s.

February 1935