“We haven’t known each other long enough.” This was your only declaration. A bloodspell. Still. I attended every prenatal appointment by your side like a wheeled nightstand as you moved In and out, in and out of hospital rooms, stood guard at the baby shower, pressed my hand over your bass drum belly as it pulsed with kicks and our hearts soared, urged nurses to pay you more attention, watched 5AM waters cascade from you onto bathroom linoleum, drove you to the delivery room, rubbed your sciatic nerve as you cried silent in labor pains, watched his head groundhog In and out, in and out of you, beheld the flight he took cocooned in your tunnel of waters, touched his slime-covered back and cut the cord in a fell slice, watched gloved hands lift him skyward onto your flustered chest, calmed him in the voice that had spoken and sung to him for nine months while the nurses did their various examinations, rocked rocked him as you rested and recovered (and pulled him from you, protective when you fell asleep with him in your arms in the narrow cot), wiped meconium from his new, narrow ass, wrote him poetry. When the social worker came asking if you wanted to add a second name to the record of birth, you looked at him, glanced at me. And shook your head –
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