Second Gratitude

Yours was an easy birth, daughter,
quick & without forceps or knife or long
savage silence; you burst the world with a wail,
then sought my breast. Your brain
was unbruised; you were intact, un-anything:
ICU’d, IV’d, EKG’d, transfused, gavaged,
or otherwise scanned & perused.
We came home the next day, where
you ate & shat & dreamed & slept & slept—
what they always say babies do.
Blossom mouth, saturn-peach hands,
dark hair tufting around your ears & whorled
down your doll’s back. I lay beside you,
watching your chest fill & fall,
& measured your breath with my breath,
your foot with my thumb, your thumb
with my eyelash. You roused & smiled
on cue, hitting the benchmarks, & when
I needed help, Dr. Spock (who’d never
been right before) knew what to do. You,
the world restored & everything, everything new.