The Birthing Plan

There will be a warm pool of water

caressing and supporting 

my swollen body,

a womb surrounding me

as my womb surrounds the child.

Scented candles, gentle music.

I will breathe out

as my muscles contract,

pant, as I does in orgasm

and push out this new life.

The baby will slip into the water,

past my perineum, softened by almond oil,

like a newborn seal pup,

and be placed on my breast to suckle.

It will open its new-found eyes

to look into mine and bond forever.

A harsh-lit, hard-cornered delivery room.

No, someone else is using the pool,

no, the suite with wallpaper and curtains

is already occupied.

You must go here, 

lie on this high bed

with black vinyl and metal stirrups,

looking at overhead neon strip lights,  

bare cold puce linoleum,

or the cabinet of scarey steel tools,

inhale the smell of disinfectant.

The music doesn’t play.

All around I can hear the cries 

of women in agony echoing from other rooms.

I hold my breath against the pain,

scream at my husband to get the midwife,

make it stop, give me drugs.

Time lurches forward on waves of pain

until it feels this will be my life forever more.

The midwife comes and goes,

Inserting latex covered hand and declaring

‘only five centimetres, six, seven, eight, nine, ten

you need to push.’

‘I can’t’ there is nothing left of me but

pain and neon lights and eternal time.

but somehow my body does,

the pain is joined by another one

as I rip open

then am sewn back up again

as he holds the baby

and looks into her eyes.

The only thing that slipped out

was him, for a cigarette.