This Birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. — T.S. Eliot

They all look quite like you at that age,
        and dead like nothing at all,
        a clot of purple-gray, sticky and wrapped with strong, black ribbons.

Feeling you leave in a gush of pain and red,
        in the blackest and loneliest part of the night,
was a hard & bitter agony,
        like giving birth,
giving birth to death.

Why were we led all that way, and never to see your face?
How could I do this again?
Death of the firstborn,
        and God spares no one,
        because why should we be passed over?

© 2007 Amanda L. Caldwell

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