Afterbirth, My Wrinkled Hands

Sometime in the night or yesterday in last few days while I was distracted with noise and blather the last husks of my chrysalis fell heavily down away from the last place I held them firmly, my hands. Oh my hands were even and silky and hidden in this shroud. I look down now and know that some time recently that old, harbored, same guarded afterbirth must have fallen away and dragged down the sheath of time that kept my hands. I feel a light and emptiness in my cradle and I see a light and emptiness in my hands. These hands are not plump with youth, they are thinning and telling. They are her hands and I am glad to see her. I just need to take time to really notice this falling away.
3/16/2009 1:49 PM

Afterbirth
Orphaned again but not dropped in the floor of the hospital
Left with the swing of a slap, but not the sting of a slap
A calloused face has no feeling during manners undone
The most useful and peculiar motion of this dropping
Is that during the fall she can only notice the event
She wasn’t not nauseous or confused or afraid
Only noticing that it was beginning, this end
How clever, clear and certain she felt feeling
About not feeling, not fearing, no anger
No lost standing or waiting, just done.
Kimberly L. Stansfield –