Early Flight
For Ian, born May 2, 2008, 4:29 a.m.
You shot out of me
like a
champagne cork—like Superman, your
grandmother said. Legs
straddled
open, a loved one holding each
up-raised foot, I saw
that same
shock flash between their faces when
you flew into the
doctor’s
arms. Sticky hair skull cap but no
tears. Your father snipped
the cord
without flinching. Different figures
crowded in, yellow-
gloved and
gowned, hurried you to an exam
table, left us to
marvel
what an entrance you made, and what
a sound! juicy pop,
cannon
full of watermelon. Only
after I noticed
no tears,
did the nurse come smiling, They found
a problem, and our
thoughts turned
to the NICU at CHOP, plastic
boxes with holes for
parents’
timid hands, procedures we had
no names for, and your
father
hid his eyes, groaned, My baby is
broken, only then
did I
get a chance to hold you, compact
bundle, stunned. In the
early
morning dark, my epidural
calm, we stared at each
other,
weary strangers boarding a plane.