I Would Not Offer to Disquiet Her – Vandal Poem of the Day

…with more strivings, but drew the child leasurely

with the crochet.

—Percivall Willughby (1596–1685)

By the time I was called for, the child

had lain too long in the womb parched

and drained of all humidity. I found

the woman’s belly still as stone, ointments

placed on her body to cure the scent from the child

cracking inside her. Hastily I compelled her to take

a liquor of milk and pepper, and busied

the midwives with warming bricks in the fire

to place at the poor woman’s feet. I bade her

close her eyes to sleep, and thus she set her head

upon the sheet but could not submit. The metal hook

warmed in my hand. I saw her eyes grow troubled

and I shut the door. In the dream I have of this moment

a ball of yarn is tangled deep inside the womb

and when I pull, pinned to the yarn comes a child’s ear

like a wrinkled dress on a clothesline. And then

a pair of lips that ride the length of the thread

and into my hand like two birds perched upon a branch.

Like this I pull again, pull until I see I am stitching

a child into the air warm as a crocheted blanket, and when

it is finished I place it upon her bed, and she looks

upon the bundle wherein lies a tiny wrinkled foot-

print, proving theirs was once a moist union

in which for many months the child swam

and swallowed. And the mother is warmed

and sleeps. And the hook cools. And the mother lives.