Today I’m using a prompt from The Crafty Poet II by Diane Lockward: the Marriage of Heaven and Hell poem.

It was a Hospital Room 

a delivery room to be exact
and I’d labored long and hard
in pain and exhaustion
and finally
one last push
and the effort was over
a slithering left my body
accompanied by tremulous cries
relief
and when they plopped her on my chest
I couldn’t believe how beautiful
how perfect she was
her mouth open in a perfect O
expressing her indignation
while I fell in love 

forty years later
another hospital room
I watch my husband shuffle to the bathroom 
with infinitesimally tiny steps
wondering why he’s not bouncing back
from an easy surgery 
supposed to change his life for the better
his life now a nightmare 
and no one explaining to me
what’s happened to his brain

when we drove home from the hospital with our four-day-old daughter
I saw a farmer on his tractor in his field
and I wanted my husband to stop the car
so we could show the farmer our baby
share our joy

©ARHuelsenbeck