Maternity

Maternity

J.W.N. Edson

Later they would bow in praise to me
and drape me in silk and feed me grapes—but then I wore wool
And ate nothing, only biting a bolt of old leather
torn from the sole of a sandal. I held my husband’s callused hand
Like a shipwrecked fisherman gripping a shred of driftwood. 
I hissed and drooled and moaned and mewled,
My own voice mingling with the beasts’ and the clinks
and the shouts of men from the nearby inn,
While my deranged limbs wailed like the voice of God at Gomorrah.

Later they would wonder, saying, Behold! the glory! 
Holy beloved of God! But it didn’t taste holy
As I writhed in the stinging straw, wretched, retching,
wracked with rash and fever, my body broken open
Like a casket of wine at a wedding. It tasted like blood
and bile and the rank manure of whatever braying hosts
Were my companions that night. My skin burned
like brimstone in the freezing air as a hammer rent my womb,
A sword tore my thighs, and my body at last was parted 
from my baby’s.

Wrung like a sponge, I emptied myself. I released 
my spirit to the night.
When it was over, 
I slept.

Later, they would marvel, crying, Mary!
You gave birth to love! To joy!—And they were right.
But it didn’t occur to me then that the bundle I held
was the Light and the Truth. I didn’t care
That he was the prophesied savior. My boy didn’t glow 
when I held him, dazed and wailing
In the stale, dank air of the stable. The sky didn’t open;
I heard no trumpets resound, saw no angels descending.
Cradling him to my breast, I beheld a more common miracle: his tiny brown hand 
wrapping weakly
Around my trembling finger.

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J.W.N. Edson
Poet & Editor

Photography by Amy J. Lewis