for Forest
It was dark when the baby’s head,
close to the base of my spine,
dropped enough to start labor.
I knew how this would go.
I knew nothing except the pain
contracting, expanding between
the window and wild where I sat
on fresh towels in the car.
For weeks I had searched for a poster
of a forest I could stare at in labor
to keep from drowning, but everything
was California redwoods, Colorado aspens,
Vermont maples having sex with themselves.
Nothing was a Kansas forest of cedar,
osage orange, cottonwood, even sycamore
crowded against itself on the edge
of grass, mayflies, hard wind.
But I wasn’t in air. I was under water
already, breathing so slowly I didn’t
realize where I was, surrounded by women
singing Gregorian chants on the radio.
Just beyond the windshield where I lived,
the wind bent everything to the left,
the forest to the right creaked as dead trees
sang the live ones. I waited until
the forest of my life answered back.
