From Love Will Burst into a Thousand Shapes
Half A Baby
I’d been there
to photograph the woman’s belly, that tiny unyeasted loaf
that Lilliputian bump, that craving convexity that yearned towards
life but could not manage
and the baby’s father, who tucked his hand atop
the still-beating second heart of his wife
this firstborn son to this couple
who had believed they were charmed
I was also there when the night turned soft
a hush, only the three of us at 4 a.m., and something
tangible in the air, brushing our skins
tender as feathers whispering our arms, our necks
Just—don’t
Don’t tell me how macabre
it was with my camera, its heavy clacking
We were there, three of us, then four
five briefly, then four, then three
and the night was more astonishing than
the love I feel for my daughters
the night was more blistering than divorce
and we loved each other
He was only 20 weeks, halfway to whole, half a baby
half a son, half way, pushing down and out
and when his miniature head finally crowned
showing a black whorl of hair
time shuddered a little before dripping off the clock
The child slid through his mother’s labouring cervix
no bigger than dust
He sank through her vagina gasping towards air
and parentage, slipping through the hot bleed
A nurse caught him, small in her palm
wrapped him in a green receiving blanket
his lips as round as a cherry as he started to breathe
and breathed
she passed him to his mother’s breasts and left us
his blue birth eyes jittered and opened
the lashes wet-clumped and his mother said
He has your ears
and her husband said He has your lips
he was covered in a web of blue veins
extra skin he never filled, protuberant bones
a dangling cord, vernix, merconium
It felt like silver rain
The parents named him Christopher Jerome, speaking his name
He convulsed, shivered his undersized death rattle, and stopped
And stopped
I talked to him, to them
There we are, there we go, brave boy
sweet boy, and in this rare and grieving moment
I tried to speak his silence
I’m just going to lift, I told him, and
photographed his hand, the size of a quarter, as if clasping
first his mother’s, then his father’s
Now, ChristopherJerome, I said, I said again, there now
His mother touched her sore hurting lips to his forehead
Don’t—
Don’t speak to me
Just don’t
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Eaton Hamilton 