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​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

​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.

​Read more...
December 2017​
ISSN 2157-8079
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