Jane C. Miller
What the Donkey Knows About Labor
In stained glass, she looks calm, the baby calm.
It was nothing like that. Fact: the trip was long,
sun beating down, sand slipping under hooves.
I followed the slumped back of the man,
as much an animal as me, who led us
into pain, known and unknown. Fact:
delivery comes before deliverance.
Forgotten, her birth water breaking
that she christened me with, dripping
down my flanks, drying with my sweat.
She twisted my mane in her hands
and moaned. What she bore, I bore
walking, the clench and release
inside her like a fist on my spine.
When she could, she would lean
into my rocking, and sleep. Forgotten,
the splitting open, bone pushed against.
In the barn, I breathed in her screams,
her blood mixing with home smells
of mud and dung. When it was done,
the man flashed his knife to sever them.
Rested the child on her belly, who cried
once. “Is he dead?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said. Flies came to nurse
on her afterbirth. Fact: in the stained glass,
I was so tired, I slept standing up.