Competent, Beautiful

Catherine took my baby
today, thank God. I stayed
for an hour and heard her
bell voice ring out Old
McDonald. The sound
stayed in my ears
as I drove away.

Competent, beautiful
mothers are everywhere
I go, performing miracles,
miracles, and they are the
thorn-crowned saviors of
the world. Fathers? Forgive
them; they know not what
they do.

I've flipped
through every image
in my brain, looking
for noncliches about
what motherhood is like.
If spiritual energy
is a fluid, there's
a siphon stuck deep
in my side. I'm so dead
tired, I can't feel
the sweet
recompensatory
wonder, the miracle
of me, anymore.