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Waiting for Liam at Lovelace Women’s Hospital
by Wendy Gist Babies in boats of cabbage leaves. Babies in pots of clay, daisy skulls, framed along hallway walls. Shift change: graveyard. Hushes are healing. 1:15 a.m. fire alarm drill. 3:00 a.m. intercom: “Code Pink first floor, Code Pink first floor.” Physician harassing a nurse? Infant abduction? Latex odor on air of apprehension. Marathons of Hawaii Five-O on waiting room T.V. My worried son at starry lover’s bedside the whole way through, and his spry mother-in-law, I listen to her pass the time sharing stories-- against the bustling backdrop smeared with whizzing moans of mother’s-to-be wheeled by on beds on backs, and on Cat-Cow yoga poses—about episodes in her life as a VA hospital nurse: gangrene toes falling off in socks. I need to vomit a river. A river of coffee refills at nurse’s station; one arthritic aunt almost bears the thirty hour wait. Middle-aged mothers and fathers pine to be grand; We fold in-between arms of waiting room chairs cool as hockey pucks in a silent rink and plummet dreamless into rest. Birth at mid-July morning bursts wails of pain. Mother dabs daughter’s flushed face with damp cloth. Anxious new mom now push, push pushes a bloom-stunned life, rosy-- umbilical cord jeweled tight around baby boy’s neck—into the gingery world. |
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