There’s no popcorn for this movie, no artful angles or Hitchcockian symbols— the light fixtures show no likeness to boobs. The boobs are boobs, splayed like sand- filled socks over her belly, and a head, a head is caught between her thighs, awaiting the incredible task of the shoulders next, and you who signed up for this can look no more. The stack of blue birthing balls condemn your averted gaze. What kind of mother can’t watch one being made? The camera stays faithful to the half-born babe, at the point of no return but not turning sideways so he can slip out. All things in due time, says the nurse, and, He’s not breathing but that’s okay, because he’s still got the cord. No need to pry with metal a flower’s unfolding. You get it. You’ve read the Tao Teh Ching, love a good float in a pool, but not today. You’re the panicked director commanding hands—a doctor’s? a baker’s? —to enter stage right and yank the baby out, bring him into this world, this ornery, full, fiery, seething, impatient, oxygenated, awful, odd beautiful world. Get him crying.
Heather Lanier is the author of two award-winning poetry chapbooks along with the memoir, Raising a Rare Girl, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Her TED talk has been viewed over two million times. She works as an assistant professor of creative writing at Rowan University.
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