Newborn
On the elevator all manner of dark thoughts slosh
around my skull despite the news that all went well:
the baby, early, but fine, my daughter, weary, but well,
and yet fears I’ve churned for 48 hours, even while
riding the subway to the hospital, pondering the births
of all these passengers, won’t give in to joy, a grandchild
whose neck I’ll nuzzle like a friendly vampire, making
her squeal with laughter, planting seeds of a gentle
grandpa in her early murky memories so that at my
funeral she might casually touch the soft skin beneath
her jaw and weep. As we rise to the 15th floor, something
I recall reading years ago, about women delivering
while tending fields, newborns carried on their backs
as they hacked whatever crop they harvested,
gives me comfort, and I wish I could tell you why
but god knows I can’t – even as he opens the door
to her room to show me my daughter. She’s okay.
Eyes puffy with labor. So much wiser than two days ago.
Bill Garvey's poetry has been published or is forthcoming in several journals including Cimarron Review, Rattle, New Verse News, Quiddity, Margie, Nixes Mate Review, The Worcester Review, 5AM, Slant, Concho River Review, New York Quarterly, Cloud Lake Literary and The Amethyst Review. Finishing Line Press published Bill's chapbook, The Burden of Angels, in 2007 and his most recent poetry collection The basement on Biella was published by DarkWinter Press in 2023.
Insightful.