Chapel of Bones

I pulled her out
with my own two hands. 
Sit up, the midwife said,
and reach down. 
 
She was warm and gooey 
and I laid her on my chest
like a beautiful ancient animal,
like I knew I was supposed to.
 
See, this wasn’t my first rodeo.
This wasn’t my first time pushing a whole person
out of my breakable body.
But this time 
 
there had been a swift holy grace to it
as I lay there on the bed
rocking and rolling.
This time, I was an angel
 
in a pink hospital gown. I was a god-
damn warrior.
We named her after a town in Portugal 
where we ate a six-course meal 
 
in an old convent 
then fell into bed like a couple of heathens
and had the same 
violent dream.
 
It wasn’t love at first sight. 
No, that came later,
when she traced my outline in the dark 
with her tiny sharp nail
 
and gave me shape. 
When she still thought we
were the same exact thing.
See, this wasn’t my first time growing a new heart.
 
But this time 
there was something else, too,
and I could feel it coming for me
from far, far away.
 
It was thick
and heavy
and oh so quiet.
No one but me
 
even knew it was there. 
We were in front of the mirror, waving at each other, 
my daughter and I,
when I thought how funny she would look 
 
if I weren’t here anymore. 
Just a baby floating 
alone
in the hallway.
 
This wasn’t my first time wanting it.
But this time, the desire was so 
succulent.
So deliciously private.
 
It was the only thing, really,
that was all mine. 
In that town in Portugal
there is a place called Capela dos Ossos—
 
the Chapel of Bones.
We stood inside it like Franciscan monks,
surrounded by the leftovers
of 5,000 friars.
 
Never forget, the bones seemed to say,
that you will die.
 
We’d walk around Brooklyn,
my daughter and I,
and I’d ogle oncoming traffic and think:
If I do it soon, she won’t even remember me. 
 
I’d stand at the edge of the subway platform and think:
It’s the kind thing to do.
But then she’d stir against my chest,
and I’d remember those skulls in those walls
 
and think: No, not now.
Again and again since then: Not yet.
See, it's not that I don’t want to. 
And lord knows I’m not afraid of pain—
 
the slam or the flail of it,
the swift holy grace of it.
It’s what happens after 
that scares me most. 
 
The not being there.
The horrible missing
of the growing 
of these precious homemade bones. 
 
On the ceiling
in that chapel
in that town in Portugal, 
is written: Better is the day of death than the day of birth.
 
Whoever wrote that was not a mother.
Whoever wrote that never got the chance to reach down 
and cup their hands around the miracle 
of a brand-new body
 
and pull.