On Birth
by Steven Sanchez
My mother shows me
a naked woman splayed
across the page,
a fetus tucked
inside her.
The description states:
superficial view of mother
and child.
She explains
how her stomach swelled,
shows me
the stretch marks
clawed across
her skin
and places my small hands
upon them.
*
Da Vinci dissected cadavers,
sketched the mysteries
of anatomy
in red and black chalk:
a uterus
shaped like an ankh,
a fetus
curved in prayer,
an umbilical chord
wrapped around it.
*
On a second-hand chalkboard,
she taught me how to write
the alphabet,
how to spell my name.
Pink and green dust
caked the side
of my left hand.
It’s okay, she said,
now you get to keep
your words with you.
*
Artists became anatomists,
hoarded their discoveries,
forbade
women from seeing
what their bodies kept,
forced midwives
out of hospitals,
out of medical schools,
ensured scalpels,
like pens,
could only be used
by men.
For over a thousand years,
doctors performed caesarians
knowing no mother survives.
*
For twenty-two hours,
he induced labor
and blamed my mother.
Try harder.
Push harder
as if she were singing,
her throat struggling
to reach
the next octave.
*
She remembers all of my birthdays,
the curve of each cake,
the crescent scar
beneath her navel,
the moon
she always carries.
*
I begged her for a brother.
The veins of his placenta
pierced her uterine wall,
nearly fused with her bladder.
Blood filled her bedpan.
I begged. I begged.
*
Placenta Percreta: when the placenta attaches itself to other organs. Likelihood increases
dramatically after a caesarian birth like mine.
The doctor warns you will die if you give birth again.
*
I sat breech in my mother’s womb,
my head on her diaphragm,
the closest I’d ever been
to her voice. The more I pressed
my ear against her,
the harder it was for her to breathe.
The doctor made an incision
with his scalpel
for the C-Section,
the first time I’d ever harm
my mother.
*
My mother knows how to get thread through the eye of a needle
find the thickest vein replace a missing button
pierce skin sew a torn seam
stitch a busted lip drive with an oil leak
be a pregnant student refill the oil in her car
inject an IV drip ride on public transit
avoid air bubbles and embolisms avoid eye contact with men
prevent leaving bruises watch the bus driver in his rearview mirror
recall the location of every major artery watch the last passenger leave
remember the test scheduled tomorrow tell the driver to let her out
grip her nail file like a scalpel hear him say You’re so beautiful
understand adrenaline’s effects understand his grin
throw her textbook escape
start again.
*
The doctor held her uterus
like a crown, my brother’s
placenta an opal set
in place by prongs
of veins. He refused
the hysterectomy,
told her it’s up to God,
prayed for the ability
to separate the two,
navigated her anatomy
from behind his loupe
like a jeweler, her body
releasing rubies.
*
We walk to her car parked down the street. I need to make sure to charge this when I plug in my
phone tonight. Her fingers wrap around a pink taser, matching the nail beds of her new
acrylics. In her other hand, keys poke out between her fingers. Everybody needs to walk like this
at night.
I laugh.
No, really, you don’t understand.
*
A jogger runs on the same side of the street as me.
I make eye contact, smile, and forget to cross the street.
She changes her path.
*
My mother learned
the anatomy
of a gun
last summer,
how to dislodge
the breech
and load a magazine,
the weight
of a brick
in her hand,
a piece of foundation
worlds are built
upon. The silhouette
on her shooting range target
had six holes in his chest,
two in his head,
and one in his neck.
I imagined he was a robber
coming after you
and your brother. I couldn’t take
any chances.
There were two bullet holes
in the white space.
At first, I just imagined
scaring him,
but he kept moving closer.
*
Once, my mother threw herself on me,
shielded me
from my father aiming
encyclopedias
at her back.
My brother’s kicks
reverberated from the womb
into my shoulders
like the recoil of a gun,
as if this is how violence is born.
after sam sax
a naked woman splayed
across the page,
a fetus tucked
inside her.
The description states:
superficial view of mother
and child.
She explains
how her stomach swelled,
shows me
the stretch marks
clawed across
her skin
and places my small hands
upon them.
*
Da Vinci dissected cadavers,
sketched the mysteries
of anatomy
in red and black chalk:
a uterus
shaped like an ankh,
a fetus
curved in prayer,
an umbilical chord
wrapped around it.
*
On a second-hand chalkboard,
she taught me how to write
the alphabet,
how to spell my name.
Pink and green dust
caked the side
of my left hand.
It’s okay, she said,
now you get to keep
your words with you.
*
Artists became anatomists,
hoarded their discoveries,
forbade
women from seeing
what their bodies kept,
forced midwives
out of hospitals,
out of medical schools,
ensured scalpels,
like pens,
could only be used
by men.
For over a thousand years,
doctors performed caesarians
knowing no mother survives.
*
For twenty-two hours,
he induced labor
and blamed my mother.
Try harder.
Push harder
as if she were singing,
her throat struggling
to reach
the next octave.
*
She remembers all of my birthdays,
the curve of each cake,
the crescent scar
beneath her navel,
the moon
she always carries.
*
I begged her for a brother.
The veins of his placenta
pierced her uterine wall,
nearly fused with her bladder.
Blood filled her bedpan.
I begged. I begged.
*
Placenta Percreta: when the placenta attaches itself to other organs. Likelihood increases
dramatically after a caesarian birth like mine.
The doctor warns you will die if you give birth again.
*
I sat breech in my mother’s womb,
my head on her diaphragm,
the closest I’d ever been
to her voice. The more I pressed
my ear against her,
the harder it was for her to breathe.
The doctor made an incision
with his scalpel
for the C-Section,
the first time I’d ever harm
my mother.
*
My mother knows how to get thread through the eye of a needle
find the thickest vein replace a missing button
pierce skin sew a torn seam
stitch a busted lip drive with an oil leak
be a pregnant student refill the oil in her car
inject an IV drip ride on public transit
avoid air bubbles and embolisms avoid eye contact with men
prevent leaving bruises watch the bus driver in his rearview mirror
recall the location of every major artery watch the last passenger leave
remember the test scheduled tomorrow tell the driver to let her out
grip her nail file like a scalpel hear him say You’re so beautiful
understand adrenaline’s effects understand his grin
throw her textbook escape
start again.
*
The doctor held her uterus
like a crown, my brother’s
placenta an opal set
in place by prongs
of veins. He refused
the hysterectomy,
told her it’s up to God,
prayed for the ability
to separate the two,
navigated her anatomy
from behind his loupe
like a jeweler, her body
releasing rubies.
*
We walk to her car parked down the street. I need to make sure to charge this when I plug in my
phone tonight. Her fingers wrap around a pink taser, matching the nail beds of her new
acrylics. In her other hand, keys poke out between her fingers. Everybody needs to walk like this
at night.
I laugh.
No, really, you don’t understand.
*
A jogger runs on the same side of the street as me.
I make eye contact, smile, and forget to cross the street.
She changes her path.
*
My mother learned
the anatomy
of a gun
last summer,
how to dislodge
the breech
and load a magazine,
the weight
of a brick
in her hand,
a piece of foundation
worlds are built
upon. The silhouette
on her shooting range target
had six holes in his chest,
two in his head,
and one in his neck.
I imagined he was a robber
coming after you
and your brother. I couldn’t take
any chances.
There were two bullet holes
in the white space.
At first, I just imagined
scaring him,
but he kept moving closer.
*
Once, my mother threw herself on me,
shielded me
from my father aiming
encyclopedias
at her back.
My brother’s kicks
reverberated from the womb
into my shoulders
like the recoil of a gun,
as if this is how violence is born.
after sam sax
Steven Sanchez is the author of Phantom Tongue (Sundress Publications, Forthcoming), selected by Mark Doty as the winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Rochelle Ratner Memorial Award. He also has two chapbooks: To My Body (Glass Poetry Press, 2016) and Photographs of Our Shadows (Agape Editions, 2017). A recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo and the Lambda Literary Foundation, his poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Nimrod, Crab Creek Review, and other publications.
