Singing along to “Thank You
for Being a Friend”
in the postpartum room,
as we wait to take home
two-day-old you.
“The Golden Girls is colostrum
to me,” Dad says.
You’re a bundled bread loaf
in a plastic bassinet
beneath the hospital TV.
We’re trying on “Mom,” “Dad”
like Blanche Devereaux
donning silk scarves,
shoulder-padded power
blazers. Maybe confidence
comes in assuming a role?
The grey December sky
is already darkening, but
night means nothing to you.
Earlier, in the wee hours
(somewhere in the waltz
of cry-swaddle-sleep,
feed-swaddle-sleep),
a nurse said you’re reckoning
with your new reality
and missing the warm
enclosure of the womb.
I cried at the thought
of your first disappointment.
Meanwhile, Dad found a playlist,
“Twelve Hours of Brown Noise
(with Womb Sounds),”
that soothed you with a steady
heartbeat reminiscent enough
of mine. Maybe parenting’s
finding a million small ways
to soften the blow? But the world
is also Sophia’s one-liners,
hills sequined with snow.
When we get out of here,
if we ever get out of here,
we will drive very slowly.