Debora Lidov
Rounds
Baby Boy with necrotizing enterocolitis three inches viable gut. Baby of maternal diabetes, maternal fever, maternal utox, maternal HIV. Baby of domestic violence. Baby Boy they were trying for a girl this time. Baby Girl they were hoping for a boy. Baby the father’s Indo-Caribbean side will not accept your blackness. Baby intubated, brain dead on arrival, mother seized and expired prior to induction. Baby born with one arm one leg external bladder but two perfect lungs and excellent heart breathing easy. Triplet A, born at 1,200 grams, home in 12 weeks; Triplet B born at 1,400 grams home in 12 weeks; Triplet C born at 800 grams never leaves never off the vent, on and off the oscillator high-frequency vent. Baby X of ambiguous genitalia. Baby, she whispers in recovery-room trance, of revenge rape, baby, she says to the aide in Creole, of gang rape, baby of incest, one nurse notes to another in the hall about the baby. Baby with fused lids get ready to see, baby on new baby trache get ready to breathe, failed kidney baby recover your function, baby, filter and excrete, arrhythmia baby steady whenever you’re ready your baby baby baby baby beat.
Debora Lidov is the author of Trance, forthcoming this month from Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in Ars Medica, Cut Throat, Five Points, Salamander, upstreet, and The Threepenny Review. Debora is a medical social worker and lives in Brooklyn.
This poem originally appeared in Tarpaulin Sky.