Caesarean
Av Peter Fallon
They were clouds come down to ground to yean,
clouds from which clouds of breathing broke.
We went out, night and day, again and again,
to check or correct. One was clearheaded.
She hadn’t the fire to make that kind of smoke.
She stood humpbacked, worn out.
We knew she could no longer carry.
One slim chance. No time to doubt
that we would learn what to do by doing.
We did not hesitate or hurry.
This would take its own time. We lay
her down and gently pulled wool from her sides.
We were clearing the way.
We went for towels, soap, beestings, and the gun.
Her lambs could swim in rough tides
of her death. We shot her to save some drib
from loss, save her pain. She opened like a bloom
beneath the red script of the scalpel’s nib
and we found twins, abandoned, perfectly
formed in the warm nest of her womb.
Premature. Too young to live. We had thought
of everything but this, what could not be guessed.
That she was ready and they were not.
They lay like kindlings dazed by daylight,
the tips of their tongues, their front feet pressed
to dive as one into the waters
of the world. We knelt close to hear a heart,
heard our own and thought it one of theirs. Daughters
of death, they’d never know their gifts,
the everyday miracles of which they were part.
They were part instead of that sacrifice
of the whole. James shrugged a smile.
The lambs pulsed once or twice,
and died. We had done what we could. Now there
were other things to do. We said nothing for a while.
