When I waited in the line
where
God handed out
babies
God skipped me
I waited with
the other women;
start in the back,
move to the front.
babies move along
the conveyance belt
God picks each one up
and hands it off
to the woman
at the front of the line
and she leaves
another taking
her place.
God skipped me
again.
This is hard to understand-
I’m waiting,
same as the rest,
glancing at babies
trying to guess
which one will
get to the front
at the same time
as me.
We are waiting
for our babies.
I am skipped
again.
I choke
on air.
Why isn’t
that baby
for me?
Where have you sent
my baby?
Why would
my baby
go to another
mother?
I want one
for me.
I’m crying
in the line now.
Women ahead
women behind
we move forward
space at a time
as I catch
my breath
I see some that
have already been here
once
are back for their second
they
are not skipped
they speed
ahead
and home again
to their families
while
my vision clouds.
Missed again.
Arms empty,
face full of tears.
The ones
I waited with
at first
no longer
have babes
but children.
The ones that
I babysat
when they were children
have children too.
What am I missing here?
I look around
and discover
mischief makers
-are they gnomes?
I’m not sure-
flaunting
their access
to the baby conveyance.
These no-good creatures
steal babies from their place
in line
and wander away
and drop them through
the clouds
to fall into the life
of a mother
not in line.
Un-planned mothers.
Surpise babies.
well
I guess gremlins
make sense.
Some of them are aiming
for crackheads
when they drop their bundles.
Others aim for
women who just left
the front of the line.
I am annoyed to have
the mystery of twins
thus exposed.
Nevermind that.
Maybe one of these
assholes
can accidentally
on purpose
drop a baby
through the clouds
into
my womb
but
if they did
the baby
never made it
through the clouds.
Since it’s clear
I’m not really
holding space in the line
or acknowledged with a reward
for my patient travel
from end to end,
I begin
to wander.
Staring through clouds
at gremlin dropped babies,
privately yelling
at those in line
when they can’t hear me,
lying facedown
and wishing I had words
to acknowledge this.
I see the feet of another
pass by me.
I turn to see
that she enters a doorway
and I understand
that she has led me to
the room
for the women who get skipped.
I walk right in.
Maybe there will be
another line,
that moves
slower.
There is not.
It is a room encircled with chairs.
Many are empty.
Many
have given up.
Those that stay,
wait.
We do not move forward,
because there is no line.
We do not
track progress
because we have already
been in line
and been skipped.
We wait.
Sometimes a name
is called-
she will stand up
speak to the attendant,
maybe it’s progress,
maybe not,
she might sit back down,
she might be handed a baby.
There is no knowing.
We don’t
follow the ways
of the line.
On the chance
that the attendant
will hand us a baby
we wait
until
we give up,
and go home,
knowing we forsake
all hope
except gremlin hope
and some of us
not even that.
Are these women
my people?
Most of us
feel like half people,
the line having drained
our colour
and the years in the room
de-flamed our hopes
into embers.
What even,
is this room?
Not a waiting room, surely,
for to wait is to have
the waiting end;
a surgery ends,
a school day ends,
a prison visit ends,
and a resolution
is not guaranteed
to anyone here.
I put forward
this thought
and all agree –
it is not
a waiting room.
‘Perhaps
an enduring room’
suggests one woman,
(we might as well discuss this
since there is no label
on the door),
‘but what are we enduring
besides the experience of sitting
in this room
and being free to leave?’
asks another,
‘isn’t that enough?’
is a quick reply,
‘but I wish it would explain it more,
for others’
says a short lady,
usually shy.
‘An Interim room?’
one offers,
and is questioned:
‘An Interred Room? –
Did I hear you?’
We laugh
and then
we laugh some more.
Yes we are the interred,
and if we leave as we came
that identity will remain.
Yet it is not
the name for the room.
We vote against
interim as well,
for being too suggestive
of a beginning, middle, and end.
When the attendant
comes back in
she says quite brusquely,
this is
the room for the infertile
and many voices immediately
tell her to Shut Up.
What does she know?
She isn’t interred here,
or enduring whatever it is
we endure here,
I bet she spends
her lunch break
with the gremlins
(those assholes!).
This room
is a sacred place,
the site would be
an ocean
if we could convert
longing and mourning
into humidity
mixed with our tears.
Cancel that -
We are the ocean
ebbing and flowing
our hearts caught in the current
and carried away from us,
coming back different.
Mothers from the line
talk about mothering
as if it is having
your heart walking around
outside your body.
Our hearts
have drifted
in salt water mourning
through years
while their children
spoke first words
and tipp-tapped down halls,
we have wandered,
in this room,
and out of it,
in silent halls
and still struggled
to name something that is both
mourning and longing.
Perhaps since we know
also of this
‘heart not in our body’
we might also claim
to be mothers.
Perhaps the identity
of a woman
is not to be determined
by the role she fills
for others.
Every woman
in this room
accepts the suggestion
that the place is very much
about being a mother.
‘But we are childless’
says a woman,
here only 18 months so far,
and we all assure her
that she has made
exactly the point.
‘We are childless mothers’
say two at once
and a third says
‘won’t that bring a lot more women here?
the mothers of children who died?’
‘Of course it will,
but don’t they belong here with us?,
I mean – don’t we
belong with them?’
‘I think we do belong- think of how many of us
know the death of a pregnancy ourselves,
and how little barrier we feel
from those who could never confirm
even an embryo?’
‘Do mothers of dead
four year olds
drown their hearts
in different oceans?’
‘Do they curse the gremlins
any less
than us?’
‘Are our lives, somehow
less empty
than theirs?’
Let’s enlarge the room.
Someone assign God with the task
of the name for the door.
Childless Mothers.
Sweetness of the Morning Dawn 