September 10, 2001
A Central Park tree root wails,
no, it's a wadded blue blanket
with a 7 pound girl, newborn
and not as red as she should be--
eyes crusted shut, putrid. From
a bench, a man sits up, pulls
a splinter from underneath a glove,
and squints as though she's the sun
and there aren't any clouds in the sky.
The weatherman is wrong but people
call for storms tomorrow. Down
the street, someone examines the still
attached placenta, deems it okay, cuts
it off. No one will save it in a baby book,
show her in 12 years when she's old
enough to be embarrassed. No one will
cut up that blue blanket, make it into
a quilt or a dress for the bear from
the hospital gift shop. A nurse flips
through four books trying to find a number,
a mother missing her baby and a man
wheels in with a gunshot wound, or
was it a missing limb?
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