​Les Wicks (Australia)

​Birthed 
​
A couple are confounded beneath
fronds of surgical light, ruthless LED.
Making this minute island.
Nurses & the obstetrician wait busily
as the father surreptitiously sucks the nitrous oxide.
 
She is shipwrecked despite
the plans & training    push     breathe    breathe
Get this fucking thing out of me &
not a ripple of response from anyone
except the partner
who dabs at her brow with a damp cloth
as though he’s tamping down grassfires
on this atoll’s interior.
 
Lapping the shores
are the heartwaves of two beings,
mother & foetus.
Statistical narratives are duly noted down
by the clerical energies of Medicine.
18 hours & counting.
The indignity of miracles, the atrocity.
There’s flurry, then cries
full of need & living.
A new small life
on this burnt summer’s day.
Lorikeets lift from the palms outside as
here the deepest compact is born,
a covenant.
 
Both parents worry for the world
but feel sure there’ll be space yet
for this tiny, mighty voice.