Before Your Name
for Ruth
Before your small fingers on my face, body I hold on a forearm, your mother shudders, her thumbs press to the table, the nails blanch white at the tips. She moves slowly, her arms circle her belly, her teeth clench and release. I hold her hand in mine as I’ve done for years and kiss the ends of her fingers pressed to the back of my hand. Her eyes widen to catch each scrap of light, anything to dull the pain, then close again and I try to feel what’s contained in her breath: your grandmothers, your great grandmothers, some animal air passed down through acids inside the cells, the low moan constructed out of song, the dear grief of birth let out without stricture, but I cannot feel what she feels, or you feel, can’t touch what touches her inside, widening gap, muscles shortened and thickened around your head. It’s the only miracle you’ll ever see, Grandma told me and when your infant hair sees light in that instant of labor and blood, I watch the world dissolve, language languishes, my tongue goes dull, before your cry, before your name begins the world again.
by Joseph Heithaus, North American Review November-December 2003, Volume 288, Number 6.
