{"id":688,"date":"2020-11-24T21:27:13","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T01:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=688"},"modified":"2021-06-24T15:09:19","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T19:09:19","slug":"parturition","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/poetry-archive\/parturition\/","title":{"rendered":"Parturition"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"\"

Tokyo High Rise<\/em> by Lawrence Bridges<\/p><\/div>\r\n


Parturition<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Daisy Bassen

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I delivered seventeen placentas that summer,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

maybe eighteen, I didn\u2019t keep track.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I didn\u2019t understand yet why I should\u2014<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019d bought the party line that the baby<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

was the main attraction, you had to be alert<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

for a nuchal cord, blue amber in lumps<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

around her neck, reduced with legerdemain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Magic\u2014 that was the goal anyway. Not the placenta<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

livid aspic in a silver tray, taken to pathology<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

only to search for its failures, then discarded.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

No one was planting them at the foot of a sapling<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

then. It\u2019s nice, I guess, but you still pay<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

attention to the tree, its slender trunk, white<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

blossom like a bewildering squall in May.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The placenta is forgotten again, purposefully,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

the way any small adulation of the woman<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

in the broken-down bed has been forgotten.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019m being generous in ascribing forgetfulness<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

to us all; there\u2019s a revulsion at seeing<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

what\u2019s required to create sentience, the thrilled cry<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

that will one day be echoed when she discovers<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

semiotics, breath\u2019s charged equilibration with air.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The truth: the least qualified person in the room<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

was tasked with making sure the mother<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

(her complete identity at the moment of birth,<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

like crystalline iodine, sublimating)<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

would survive. A placenta, tethered, undelivered,<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

is a death sentence, but only for one person.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The first person you never remember.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n
\"\"<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

Daisy Bassen<\/strong> (@dgbassen) is a poet, novelist, and physician whose work has appeared in McSweeney\u2019s<\/em> and [PANK]<\/em>, among other journals. She\u2019s a happily transplanted Rhode Islander.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parturition Daisy Bassen I delivered seventeen placentas that summer, maybe eighteen, I didn\u2019t keep track. I didn\u2019t understand yet why I should\u2014 I\u2019d bought the party line that the baby Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3309,"featured_media":0,"parent":1261,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3309"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1567,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/688\/revisions\/1567"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}