December 29, 2015 by Jaimie Gusman

End Of Year

It’s been a long while since I posted. Over the past 9 months, pregnancy has made me read more, write less [publicly]. But now, as I count contractions, I can’t help but find myself with an overwhelming desire to make things: baby things, poem things, food things. I also can’t help but find myself wanting to strip things down by furiously cleaning, throwing away junk, organizing desk drawers.

I thought the baby might come yesterday. It felt like the silver edge of a Monarch butterfly’s wings–the one I watch on the lanai–made its way into my belly, fluttering violently. I slept off and on after getting home from the birthing center. This morning, in a daze, I imagined the butterfly made a cocoon of my daughter as my husband counted the time between my abdomen tightening and releasing.

I thought up this piece of a poem in the shower, then wrote it down quickly. This will probably be the last post I write before the New Year. I wish everyone a happy one, whatever it is you’re waiting for.

Waiting For Your Arrival

The day of Jesus
has passed.
His ribbons prove
wrapping paper
exists as love exits
the glossy chevron
of reds and greens.

In the morning
I eat an apple
outside and listen
to the birds
call to the core
of earth.
The red ginger
swings her heavy stalks
and I count 4, 8, 16
breaths, then breathe.

The days between
“doing” and “due”
are passing.
I take walks,
change your name
a thousand times.
What suits you,
daughter of valley-rain
and hibiscus bees?
What suits your heart

will strip your skin
of all its aching armor.
I write this poem,
aching, my right arm
a cradle for the cradling
womb—
women do this
(I suppose), as simply
as they lose the weight
of their bodies.