Her First Week

Her First Week

               by Sharon Olds

She was so small I would scan the crib a half-second

to find her, face down in a corner, limp

as something gently flung down, or fallen

from some sky an inch above the mattress.  I would

tuck her arm along her side

and slowly turn her over.  She would tumble

over part by part, like a load

of damp laundry, in the dryer, I'd slip

a hand in, under her neck,

slide the other under her back,

and evenly lift her up.  Her little bottom

sat in my palm, her chest contained

the puckered, moire sacs, and her neck --

I was afraid of her neck, once I almost

thought I heard it quetly snap,

I looked at her and she swivelled her slate

eyes and looked at me.  It was in

my care, the creature of her spine, like the first

chordate, as if the history 

of the vertebrate had been placed in my hands.

Every time I checked, she was still

with us -- someday there would be a human

race.  I could not see it in her eyes,

but when I fed her, gathered her

like a loose bouquet to my side and offered

the breast, greyish-white and struck with

miniscule scars like creeks in sunlight, I

felt she was serious.  I believed she was willing

      to stay.  


From Sharon Olds, The Wellspring, 1996.