Birth

Months of expectation
yet birth comes as a shock.
No one tells you the truth
about the raging relentlessness
of that potent force.
They can’t. It won’t write.
Mind’s an obstruction.
Birth’s beyond words
like that which sparks it;
knowable only in the moment.
Ouverture: woman as cunt, welcoming;
Finale: woman as womb, expelling.
Body reforms. Life transforms.

© Sandra Meredith, April - May 2008

Please see:

Sandra Meredith - 'Birth', poem in response to 'Untitled 22' in the Hidden Woman Series

Sandra Meredith - 'Elegy - death at a distance', poem in response to 'Disappearance' in the Hidden Woman Series