Men Between Marriages Need Midwives

To stand, hands outstretched
Cradling the squalls of our rebellion,
Letting them be.

My midwife could
Catch the eggs I’d wasted and add them
To her cooking. Mine could
Laugh at the promises I made to keep her.

My midwife peeled from me my oldest skin,
Turned my heads from the rows I’d dug
By humping twenty years in blinders.

She took my life in her hands and pulled
It from the vortex that was my cherished infancy.

My midwife kissed me, spat out the blood
And taught me how to please her.
“If I’m having a good time,” she said,
“You’re having a good time.”

She took my head and my hand and she calmed me.
She resurrected my questions and buried them again
In a plot of her own digging.

Each time I was
Born again and each time
I thought I said thank you I said
Nothing. And each time I thought
She was leaving, I said stay.

Until I knew she would stay until I left
And then I left.
Married.