A Baby Asleep After Pain

   As a drenched, drowned bee
Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower,
   So clings to me
My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears
   And laid against her cheek;
Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm,
Swinging heavily to my movement as I walk.
   My sleeping baby hangs upon my life,
Like a burden she hangs on me.
   She has always seemed so light,
But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain
Even her floating hair sinks heavily,
   Reaching downwards;
As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee
   Are a heaviness, and a weariness.

This poem is in the public domain.