Motherhood

Here's a poem I wrote for Miia for Mother's Day. It's not romantic. Wanted to let her know I appreciate the work and the sacrifice of her mothering, and mothering in general:



Motherhood

The furniture is all draped in bright plastic toys,
designed to catch new eyes as ours blur
in psycho-sleepless overdose. So many monkeys
in so many colours, can’t tell which one he means,
when he jibber jabbers his many monkey stories.

Gums gumming at my boneless fingers.
Nguhmngaoohawooglglnnnnaaah!
gurgles to babbles to wails
stuffing up our underground bunker.
No one hears but us, from the depths
of seven winter blankets, no one responds
but you.

At 11:00, 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, and 7:30,
when all-night urine wafts tickle our noses.
Somehow with a true smile, his
fluffy white dog howls deep-bayed devotion.

Yet a crane is called in to lift my eyelids,
and reveal, through a greasy waterfall,
the open-mouthed toothless grinning morning.

What adventures the day holds:
One helicopter pooh;
two laundry loads;
three face-shredding cries;
four new mouth-sounds;
five giggly fits;
six milk-drool feedbacks;
seven diaper changes.

And somewhere, maybe food, fast;
quick check your email,
before he wakes up!

In this motherhood, no room for error.
No room for hubby’s flu-ridden stomach
lining in the diaper bucket, baby putting his
direct on you, while you clean the other’s
double-foul stench. That moment wasn’t covered
in pre-natal class, nor in the parenting books
holding court on our shelves, shoving aside
novels, philosophy and politics with their
kindly commands of unconditional love,
raising a “we generation.”

Foucault can’t help you now anyway,
can’t remind you the words to Frere Jacques.
There are no extra arms for you in any
of the 18 parvas of the Mahabharata.

As you squeal and you waltz your
Thirty-inch partner room to room, and
room to room to day to day singing and
smiling a 1950s sitcom tune, and
as you try to remember the name
of that Nobel-winning theory you employed
in winning your community development award,
those names and titles crammed uselessly
in prominent shelves, those prolific names
who traveled with you from the suburbs
to the ivy walls to the inner city,
they ask you, and ask you, “Surely,
we too had children? Where did we ever
find time for something as elusive as an idea?”

But they’re disgusted with your puke-covered blouse
and your unwashed hair. Their question is
an accusation that spews the dust from their jackets
airborne, where it clings unwanted to your
most intimate dance, settles on your shoulders
promising more housework, and as you reach
to brush it off, it occurs to you that the dust
is perhaps made of seeds – seed of ideas –

And he farts, too long and too wet,
and you flick your fingers, brush the dust
into an explosion of aborted thought.
And he giggles, and you giggle back,
press your nose to his and rub.
“Wazza wazza wazza!” you say,
and he giggles and he squeals.

Birth

Bit of a re-write from my pre-birth poem about labour:




At first it’s a slow leak,
nothing to panic about.
We watch the game
after a brief call to the midwife,
who is concerned by the snow
barricading her country home.

To bed for now,
in our basement bedroom.

4 am comes too early.
My between-contraction naps
become too brief and frequent.
Then pop.
Gush.
Bags of waters,
which protected this 9-month concept,
down the drain.
Still no midwife.

5 am the shrieking begins;
there’s blood on the floor.
A slightly panicked call to the midwife,
who says in the face of rapid dilation,
to stay low and calm -
no shrieking.

Just low moans,
at the buffalo frequency,
bouncing on your birth ball.

Fill the tub.
Muddy bloodied waters.
No problem,
as long as it’s warm
in the cold
and cool in the heat.

Stay low and calm
at the buffalo frequency.

Help me,
you whisper your scream.
We’re only 2 hours in.

Stay low and calm
at the buffalo frequency.

You can do this,
I mock confidence.
And then we’ll have a baby.

Where’s the midwife?
Your query
more rhythmic than contractions.

Friends come first,
with a breakfast to go cold
as they boil water,
like a 60s sitcom birth.
Filling our birth pool
by the fire they built
in our living room.

Where’s the midwife?

Stay low and calm
at the buffalo frequency.
Tepid water over contracting belly,
moaning low.
300 liquid scoops
cool the pain
until it gets worse,
and you push them away
as the midwife arrives.

I feel like I want to push.

No don’t do that!
quoth the ignorant partner.

The voice of experience
searches for cervix,
finds nothing,
says, it’s all natural.
You’re ready to go.

So up we go,
lumbered stair-climb,
you staggering, punch-drunk
like a lopsided prizefighter
begging to throw in the towel,
as we throw you into warm water.

Nobody can do this but you,
and guess what, you’re doin’ it.
You will get this baby in your arms,
she informs you, her lips taut
like the memory of a cigarette,
her voice all silken dominatrix.
Now push!

You scream your war cry.
Forget low and calm,
to hell with buffalos.
You sweat methane,
but you won’t take my hand,
just ice-water.
Ice-water to forehead,
ice-water to lips,
to throat, then spilled
under a small slice of sea.
My hand is freed
For shoulder neck massage.

You wail, just short of ululation.
Your language is clear,
your cries reverential.
This is not the time to be crass,
though the neighbours think
you are being tortured.

The baby responds with a crown.
You can’t see it.
Anticipation fills the room,
like a back-alley yodel
you’re so close, Mama,
we all agree.
But you aren’t impressed
by the sliver of emergent hair.
I’m so far away.
Can I quit now?

Low moans,
buffalo frequency.

Seven more warriors cry.
Seven more uterine contracts.
Your baby’s face is slipping through,
and my hands are placed for the pull,
but the shoulder is stuck as we heave,
and it’ll surely break with such force,
our biceps one way
your contorted primal writhing
the other.

I can only whimper and cry,
as this marathon miracle 1st prize
passes through my hands, head-first
into the rivulet between your breasts.
Legs are spread to see
his swollen testicles dangling.
It’s a boy, my little baby boy!
But you already knew that.
My shoulders heaving tears,
your face a sheet of white shock.
What just happened?

The radio sings:
I’m Here
for You

A smile washes over my body.
He looks like me.
He looks like you.
A smile washes over my body,
blocks my fears
of tyrannical fatherhood.

We kiss,
each other and him,
our lips his cheeks.

Just sculpted lines between mother and child
have blurred and blended again,
leaving a singular hope.

The Labour Dance

This is how I'm imagining labour based on pre-natal classes [I'll let you know fairly soon how it compares to the real thing, from my 'helper' perspective]:


Labour

You’re in the marathonic power of labour,
the opaque shadowing of your membrane networks.
Splashing bags of waters onto your clean floor
leaves you spewing complaints about contractions
and the impending doom of allegations,
or is it obligations.

You will get this baby in your arms,
the nurse informs you, her lips taut
like the memory of a cigarette,
her voice spilled gravel on lovers’ lane.
Now push!

You scream your war cry.
You sweat methane,
crush my hands into broken blisters,
bouncing on your birth ball,
under a small slice of sea.
Mah! there! Fuckerrrrrr!
You scream, and it can only
be directed at me.

But the baby responds with a cry,
while I can only whimper
as this marathon miracle 1st prize
passes through my hands, head-first
into the rivulet between your breasts.
It’s bloody blue and conical,
with double bum-flaps exposed
to your exhalation wind.

As lips encircle nipple,
suck so hard it blocks my fears
of tyrannical fatherhood,
a smile washes over my body.

I kiss the miniscule foot at your belly.
Just sculpted lines between mother and child
have blurred and blended again,
leaving a singular hope.



And this is life in the lead-up time:



The Dance

This rhythm is ours:
1 – 2 – 3 – 4.
We don’t want your structure,
don’t want your counting rituals.

It’s a unified sway:
A – B – C – D.
Whatever symbols you show me,
can’t represent how hard it is.

No words for our truth:
cloves – cinnamon – cardamom – nutmeg.
Sugar pulls it all together,
we swallow when it’s just right.

Pregnant curves roll into my angles:
her – cats – children – home.
Burning logs and minor keys,
deaf to television punditry.

To Mike Brooker

I was throwing out some punches
in Riviere-du-Loup
replacing pain with pain
I was just passing through

I was headed westward
for that phallus in the sky
of course I got busted
thrown in jail to get dry

Passed out on the concrete
sleeping rough again
this my latest tailspin
me and 60 other men

the worst thing about it is
this song is all a lie
all except the drinking part
so I forget to cry

I ain't ever been no where
outside of Halifax
got nobody but my parents
and they don't want me back

And if I died tonight
on the streets of this cold town
my social worker'd id me
'cause there's no one else around

No I don't need your sympathy
and I don't mean to complain
but the world has abandoned me
and my hopes run through your drain

You say that I'm a burden
my own worst enemy
that may just be true but
who has been a friend to me?