Birth Plan

I saw you descending
On the night she was born
to the place you had feared
where I could not follow.

I heard you scream her name
And pound your fists against
The doors of silence shut
between our world and hers.

I heard you storm the walls
For a night and day
When still the gates were shut
They spread a table there,

Your worst fears before you:
The needle in the spine
The mixture in the vein
The knife across the womb.

It was the second night,
When I saw you choosing
The needle and the knife
Her self above your own.

When I am bent and old
And she is strong and tall
We will remember it
How you rose up, roaring, ​

and won our daughter home.

Thank you to our guest blogger Mike!

Mike Bonikowsky spends the week trying to keep Micah (2) and Anawim (4) fed, clothed, and recognizable as human children, with varying degrees of success. On the weekends he works for Community Living Dufferin, supporting adults with developmental disabilities. In the ten remaining minutes of the week, he write poems.

Mike has recently published an ebook of his poems currently available here. You can also find more of his work here.