Baby In a Box

Baby in a box.

Born too soon.

Not yet baked.

Naked in a box.

Light burns bright 

Trying to hurry her readiness for the world.

Light burns eyes 

And tissue paper skin. 

Heart beats fast. 

Like hummingbird wings 

Breath comes shallow

Ah-quick, ah-quick, ah-quick

One pound baby

Alone in clear hot box. 

Voices all around, not talking to her.

Baby in a box.

No cooing, no touch, 

Only prodding and pokes.

Tubes down the throat. Tubes up the nose. 

Nobody talks to the baby in the box.

Oh, they worry 'bout her.

Oh, they tsk, tsk, over her.

Oh, they sure want her to live 

But they don't believe she will.

They won't waste loving.

What if she dies...

That would hurt their hearts.

The baby in the box has no choice 

Biological imperative

Makes her breathe...

Makes her follow 

The beating of her heart 

The loudest sound of all.

Burning day lights turn to burning night lights

Dissolving into day again.

For the baby born too soon,

This Motel 6 

Where they keep 

The light on for ya 24/7

To simulate womb warmth, 

Is second rate.  

Mama's Grand Hotel

With incomparable interior decor 

Had 24/7 womb service 

More to the point

It was the only place she'd known

This baby in the box.

Mama's muscled uterus 

Buffered light and sound

This baby in the box 

Cringes at loud noise

After four long months 

Her daddy takes her home 

To a land far away 

From where her mama birthed 

Her too wee babe 

Prematurely in hospital 

So far from the island 

Where baby would grow up. 

Mama walked out right after giving birth, 

Afraid of one so tiny, so fragile, 

Born before either was ready, 

Mama afraid she'd do baby harm, 

She left and never came back.

What is the cost for the baby in the box?

Sure, she walks. 

Sure, she talks.

Sure, she grows and knows ~ things,

But she also knows things inside each cell:

     I'm a burden, a thing to be poked

     A thing to be left behind by the only 

     Mama I've ever known, never more 

     To be seen, heard, smelled, or felt.

Ejected. Rejected. Inspected. Injected. 

Suspected not to be viable. 

Marked forever by shadows.  

Pushing uphill forever more

Trying to undo what was done

By no choice of her own. 

Interesting choice later in life 

Baby now grown 

Chose vocation of her own

Photography puts her again behind glass

Watching, not engaging in life.

Snap. Shots.

Capturing, immobilizing with light on film

What's outside

Effort to expunge 

Dark that's inside?

Hard to be close to humans.

She can't trust.

Ever present anxiety

Feels herself to be

A misfit in society

Strange bruises still appear 

Vivid on her shins 

After fifty years!

Old pokes and prods on

Innocent flesh revealed 

What in the present still 

Wants to be healed.

Memories of being stuck, 

This baby in the box 

Starts to talk - at least 

Her body speaks

Neon signs, these purple-gray 

Bruises on her legs spell out

     Something happened here

     So long long ago

Fifty years later there's time.

There's space.

There's curiosity. 

To make a different choice

To make the take-away 

Different from what she took away.

Her internal dialog goes something like this:

     Maybe I would rather have died

     Somehow I didn't

     Somehow I made it through all that

     What's it like to be alive and know

     What I know

     I endured

     What I left behind and

     Who left me?

     That was not my choice.

     Biology began my biography

     I don't have to let it be ever so.

     Now, I have choice to understand

     What happened to the baby in the box

     Build compassion for her

     Build bridges internally between

     What happened then and 

     What I do with it now.

Baby in the box moves on

Less encumbered by 

Stresses of that wee one of old times.