Three times you received a squalling, sticky baby.
On your lined palms the warmth, the bruise-tender skin,
aching in new air;
an angry bag of bones.
With the weight of the body comes the weight
of the life to come. I receive you
into myself, you said, as you opened your hands
and took them.
You used your hands to make good on that promise:
manipulating swollen breasts into vice-mouths,
swiping salt tears with a thumb,
scooping vomit from neck and hair.
Can’t say you weren’t warned. It was all there
the first time, split and seeping,
as you rested one raw palm on a downy back,
watched your life splinter to fragments, and
gladly let it all go.
Rachel Jeffcoat is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in Fourth Trimester Magazine, Huff Post UK and Dear Damsels. When not writing at midnight or reading whenever she has a hand free, she can be found on Instagram @rachel__jeffcoat and Medium @racheljeffcoat.
Latest posts by Rachel Jeffcoat (see all)
- The Contract - 11th October 2020
- For My Daughter, Later - 6th September 2020