Coulson: HFFD, 1-3, 4 hourly,
McCulloch: SVD, prim, meaning prima gravida, first birth.
In her breast pocket, starched sharp, or tucked
into her butterfly cap, the wee pen rests;
snug as a cat on coals, so not snug at all.
Even so, Janis inks them in, the shift’s newborns:
satin soft & raw as ripe fruit. She’s a maternity nurse,
post-birthing care: at the tail-end of the gulf
between the thing itself and the naming
of the thing. Babies are wiped, weighed, fed,
and pray to god that’s all. Sticky eyes, clean
with water. Eight on the left breast, eight
on the right, a healthy first feed;
humilactor at the ready all the same.
Darnborough: ELSCS, decomps only
Henderson: SVD, prim, hip dislocation
Janis is preparing serum, as behind the curtain
more mother’s push into the body’s bondages
and breaking points. It’s all hearts on deck
to quell the panicked sweat of boogeymen.
Blue babies need rescued, need 4% oxygen,
all those heirlooms waiting for their colours
to rise; skin too can rainbow back to life.
In an ideal world: matrons, sisters & big boss
(number seven) would all throng in. In reality
it might be just Janis, nerves singing,
a fresh twenty and left alone to save a life.
Gargantuan is the pressure on a tiny chest,
on a nurse’s mettle, broken glass
in the words that deliver broken news.
Though mostly, it’s life, heaven praises,
seventeen born this single shift.
Vance: SVD, 6-5, muscy
Miller: SVD, jaundice, 10×10
No white and red roses, not together, not ever!
It’s a deathy portent says number seven.
Same goes for whistling, Janis was marked down
for that – there is no lilting country music
no Joni Mitchell or REM chuting down
the hospital corridors, yet life’s rapture hymns
in every cradled clutch. Whistling on the trot
home to Abbeyhill. however, is permitted.
It’s not a route marked by obelisks
but by Napiers Herbailst and Dofos Pet Store.
She’ll take the long way round if it’s been
a night of it. Down London Road
– where tulip petals droop like tongues
licking zephyrs – through Holyrood Park
and its impossibility of gorse, becoming unseen
amongst a blaze of gold, green & thorny soldiers.
Even the sun is invisible in the flames of a fire.
Home now, Janis lights a joss stick instead;
hippy. In the sky, a rip of purple, in the air
a cry of distant bells, tired yet alive.
Beveridge: KFRD, SCU, underline – special care unit.
Lee: I HFFD, girl; II AB, boy – twins.
Janis is my mum. The Janis of today
lights up talking me through this,
fetches the kitchen tongs to demonstrate
forceps handling. She’s right enough,
white is an awful colour for a uniform
when there’s so much blood, gunk
and meconium about. Next comes
the nurse’s notepads, her last words
on the wards are dated 28/04/1976. Mum
moved on, and I believe there’s some regret
in leaving, though it’s a gossamer grief
as she did it for love and friendship,
but knows she could had borne it, stomached
the heart-thwacks, celebrated life’s wins.
That last baby was named after her, Lee
her maidan name. I hope the kid was told
some soppy story, that before me and my sister
were born another twirp gargled grateful.
In the morning, over eggs and curried beans
the chat’s moved on to flowers flourishing
in the garden. The scale of them, their seasonality,
whether it’s time to scatter wildflowers
over the back bit, take some of the heat off,
lure back the bees and hedgehogs, that allusive
troupe of newts. She’s wondering, else I am,
at what point the garden outgrows her,
whether it’s getting there. That baby’s alright,
she says unexpectedly, except she never,
just thought it. What I mean to say is:
wow, you did that, except I don’t,
too busy taking notes.