By John Grey
I didn’t think she’d be here
for the birth of her first grandchild,
but you never know what a ghost will do,
not when it’s the eggs of her eggs
that have ripened into a tiny red-skinned boy
with a squawk like a gull and hair the color
of new radishes.
But it’s not her phantom
haunting the delivery room.
It’s memory, not quite as gray-haired,
as rickety on its pins
as that last image of her.
Her head looks over the doctor’s shoulder.
Her arms reach out to steady the nurse’s hold.
She helps wipe the blood,
soothes her daughter’s brow
with nothing but the palm of her hand.
We figured she was buried so deep
that the family hierarchy
began with the woman in the bed,
the man pacing in the waiting room.
But she’s here for one touch
of new human flesh,
a tap on the back
to get lungs moving,
a gentle rocking of a crib,
maybe a kiss on the cheek so light,
the baby thinks it put it there itself.
Of course, it’s only right she should be here.
For she never believed death was the end.
She wasn’t even sure it was the beginning of anything.
And she always dreamed of being a grandmother.
So maybe it’s a dream
that’s bringing the baby home.
And if it’s a dream,
then there has to be someone,
as close as breath,
dreaming.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, Leaves On Pages, Memory Outside The Head, and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline, and International Poetry Review.