The beast in me

Labouring for you
I bare my fangs and try to bite; I cry out,
in animal ways: now moaning, now bleating like a goat —
till the midwives bid me hush.

4:56am, you slither into the world
‘It’s a seal!’; our Sol
and just like that —
we have our baby sun.

But then a gorilla arm nets you
while I suffer on
racked on the pinnacle pain
of afterbirth

I bleed and bleed, bear the indignity of stitches
by a cold-fish doctor
who I’m desperate to make like me —
to remind I’m human — to keep us safe.

Then daddy goes — they all go
and the koels come calling
as our eyes and skin meet
and feather-light rain dawns outside.

Two hours alone
for your first greedy feed
and my first taste of that love that conquers all,
that makes monkeys out of men.

You: the best thing I’ve ever seen, or felt, or smelt
in your candy-striped hospital blanket;
a miniature perfection, with that slicked-up seal hair —
all glorious, uncharted, new-fangled.

The intensity of those moments
sets me mewling, even now,
two babies later, as I try
to claw back my person from the wolves.

And just say a further sibling
were to colonise my womb —
a new parasite suck upon my marrow — then tell me:
could you ever forgive me?