For 9 months and 20 hours she bore Eve’s ancient curse,
On her via dolorosa through the still
Hospital halls, from Tabor to Calvary Hill.
Then stripped, and flogged with spasms from bad to worse
And stalled far short of crowning, she felt her worth
Fall with the fetal heart tone’s slowing trill.
Compelled to accept not ours, but Our Father’s Will:
“Father, into your hands we commend this birth.”
Cruciform on the O.R. bed she lay
And one of them opened her uterus with a scalpel.
At once there flowed out blood and amnios.
“Behold your daughter!” In my arms there lay,
Screaming, slimy, blue and palpable
The Love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
