I’ll
not forget
you two
hours old,
all of
us quitting the birth ward.
Not a
nurse
in the
night-wide corridor,
all of
us lumbered.
Your
mother slack,
I the one told
to carry you on my
girth.
A fat old man
fearful at every tread
to the private room.
The others heavy with
baskets
like refugees into
Egypt,
faltering.
I’ll not forget
your smell of now,
our promise bundle.
And you’ll not
forget,
told of it often
(and reading these
lines):
we were disobeying the
rules!
