August, 1953

A nurse gathers up the afterbirth. My mother

    *

had been howling but now could sleep.

    *

By this time I am gone—also gathered up

    *

& wheeled out. Above my jaundiced face the nurses hover.

    *

Outside, a scab commands a city bus. The picketers battle cops

    *

& ten thousand Soviet conscripts in goggles

    *

kneel & cover their eyes. Mushroom cloud above the Gobi,

    *

& slithering toward Stalin's brain, the blood clot

    *

takes its time. Ethel Rosenberg has rocketed

    *

to the afterlife, her hair shooting flame. The afterbirth

    *

is sloshing in a pail, steadied by an orderly who curses

    *

when the elevator doors stay shut: I am soul & body & medical waste

    *

foaming to the sewers of St. Paul. I am not yet aware

    *

of gratitude or shame.

                                I do know the light is everywhere.