Lenna Mendoza

The Miracle of Life (1983)

We knew the tape by name, 

leeched sweetness from miracle 

with every rumor repeated. 

Kids with older siblings swore 

we’d see it cradled in a nest 

of hair, low on the woman 

we would not call a mother. That day,

30 faces warmed by shame, the hue 

of amniotic fluid. The youngest of us

tongued the crater of a baby tooth, 

that gap tattered and awful 

as the embryo on a whining CRT. 

Teacher breathed beautiful, beautiful. 

The narrator said at seven weeks. The curl 

of flesh grew with our anticipation, 

sprouting nubs for arms, legs, a tail. 

It became too great, the pain

sweat-gluing feathered bangs

to her scrunched face, the nurse attagirl-ing

between contractions until the head crowned

through our long-awaited sight—a V 

becoming Y, drowned in sterile blue-white 

hospital garb and the baby’s gnarled head 

dripping viscous fluid, underscored 

by synths and the sighs of attendants

suctioning the newborn’s nose. We writhed 

and, feet out, lost sight. For all our buzz, 

we’d little to say. Her privacy was just

a door between dimensions 

that, out of use, dissolved away.