Delivery Room

Awoken by my own cries in the middle of the night,

I had lost my first born in the first minutes of his life.

Stripped away from my arms by nurses in white, 

Fallen angels all too eager to pluck him from my side. 

I reassured myself it was just a bad dream, 

But I could see his blue toes, wispy hair, soft cheeks, 

And dainty eyelashes that never got to flutter butterfly wings.

I begged my husband to wake up, pinch me, shake me, bring me back to real life. 

But his words were far from soothing, they were sharper than the doctor's knife.

He gently rubbed my back with his hands that had held him once too,

And I fell back into the memory of my nightmare come true.