Even though it was snowing, when her time came, my father
was sent for the midwife to assist in the birthing.
Nurse O’Connor arrived in her warm, green, fur lined
winter coat with satin lapels. Parked her high nelly bike
against the gable wall, her big, brown leather bag,
health board standard issue, on the carrier.
White cap, apron and towels rolled up in the wicker basket
on the front. My father unsure what to do with himself
helped carry the tools of her trade up the narrow stairs,
his craggy fingers unused to the delicacies of women’s work.
She washed her steady, soft hands in the pocked white enamel
basin filled to the open mouth with warm soapy water.
Unfolded her instruments, laid them out on the dresser
like a conductor, forceps, surgery tools, yellow orange
bottles of disinfectant, took up the ready position
at the end of the iron bed. Hummed softly, her laced
up ankle boots kept time to my mother’s crescendo
as it rose to the rhythm of nature—
Afterwards she gathered her apparatus, folded it in soft
muslin. Her bag in hand she left, all thanks declined
as she cycled back towards town until the next time.
I peeped through the cracks in the bedroom door,
saw the sawdust blood stained on the floor, sheets
crumpled and torn, my mother’s forehead bathed
in sweat. Pushing auburn curls out of her eyes
and holding in the crook of her arm, the pink rose
bloom of my sister, all slippery and new, her first
breath rising like a modulation from Puccini’s great aria,
Gianni Schicchi, “O mio babbino caro”
