Sterile Field

I try to decode the doctor's words
across a paper curtain. She wishes 
I was not awake. Uterine window—viscera 
stretched so thin they become transparent,
panes of terrarium glass over the baby, 
her feet already descended. Dehiscence. 
My husband ghostly blue in his polypropylene
gown. Too late to stop, not late enough
to know. At home, we've already hung 
six watercolor marsh-birds above the crib. 
The doctor braces one leg against the metal 
table while I retch into a kidney basin. 
My daughter emerges the color of dried lavender 
and quiet into a flurry of plastic bulbs.
And then, her supernatural cry.
My husband rushes her against my numbed 
chest, her head still covered in wet strings,
while the doctor cuts out my fallopian tubes.