1. Birth

My womb a wasteland,
engulfing all new 
growth,
briars and poison ivy
stifling any 
shoot.

My first strangulated
foetus was pickled in a
jar,
a teaching-aid for students —
and grisly talking-point.
The third, a bloody bedpan-botch,
went slithering down the 
sluice. 

The second — you —
survived twelve shaky weeks, 
then, "Sorry," Dr Slade said, "the foetal heart has
stopped."

I wept gall; ate rocks of pain;
waited in a Limbo for you to be 
excised;
heavy black-crepe curtains 
drawn across my eyes. 

But, Lazarus-like, you picked up life and
ran;
your stuttering heart re-started
and rainbows skewed the skies.

Yet you, the silent phoenix,
never kicked or stirred;
just lay, a stagnant scrag-end,
as if long ago interred.
"She may be damaged," Slade said, 
"seriously impaired."

Autumn chilled to winter,
trees shivered, frail leaves
fell.
Even past the Solstice,
the light was sick and
wan.
"You're a bad lay-er," Slade said, wryly,
"As in hen — ha, ha!"

New Year's Eve — my due-day —
I took a train to
town;
frivolities and fashion 
might distract me from my womb.
I never reached John Lewis, but limped
leaking, to the ward.

Your father brought me snowdrops,
the bravest blooms of all,
but the nurses shook their heads still,
and Slade was raw resentment
because he'd miss his New Year
ball.

Foreseeing doom, disaster,
he snarled at them and 
swore, 
but I was in a deaf world,
a world of clotted fear;
you clamped too tight inside me; 
me losing strength and heart; 
my body fraying, failing,
then splintering
apart. 

But, on the stroke of midnight,
you erupted, bruised and bawling, 
and drew your first fierce breath,
and I heard a shout, "She's perfect"
and knew you'd cheated death;
and a lithe and lusty New Year
laughed doubt and dirge to 
scorn,
as they placed you in my hungry arms, 

the best baby ever born.