Poem: When They Were Born

She watched as though from another country,
the mirror positioned between her legs, a more chaste picture than she expected. She thought
she’d be humiliated by the exposure but all she thought about
was her baby, struggling to get out
as each have had their struggles since, while she—still thinking they were hers, housed as they once were inside her— taking her all to bring them to life— and her job always to keep them there—
in life. “Stop pushing!” the doctor warned, the cruelest words she’d ever heard,
when all her being was made for pushing. “I can’t,” she croaked, but she obeyed; Anything for those, her most creative gifts…