Richelle Buccilli

BIRTHING ROOM

There was weather in the room.
Baskets of hot blood, waves

of a hurricane rising on the monitor.
And not like the movies at all.

Nothing about this, loud.
I was the red leaves

tearing from their own limbs,
slow peeled parings of skin

from our cuticle flesh, delicate—
the first pulling into winter.

Each contraction like each of my teeth,
this is the way a daughter becomes a mother.

My breaths slow, strong like wind,
my heartbeat scattered itself in the room

like wrens. If my hands had been claws,
I could have made my husband holy,

hanging from the hoodie on his chest
like something primal. At seven centimeters,

my body a lioness let loose in my gown.
Dear body full of desire, body full of fruit,

you were made to bear this,
you were made to root.

Is this the feeling of feeling the earth?
This is the room rising inside me.

Yes, unhinge me:
heavy long needle that I needed to feel.

These fists unclenched from the sweet hands
of a nurse, these fists opened like petals and wings—

my eyes unglazed, freed—
my spine was a long blade, the ice skates

salvaged from the closet—
a body both gliding and numbed—

and another body
feeling all of it,

headfirst,
leaving mine.