NO ONE CAME TO VISIT

NO ONE CAME TO VISIT

no one came with flowers
no one came with pink
balloons or candy
no one brought pink dresses
to fit a new born –

mother, she knew

no one believed
or wanted to see a child
who entered this world
a little over a pound. . .
medical men told her,
“She won’t survive the
night.”

mother, she knew

she knew when two men
visited
she knew only one – but
knew of the other
one man sat to her right
one man to her left.

those visitors did not
bring balloons or candy
or a pink dress for their
new grand daughter –
a baby who would fit into
their palm

a baby with tubes in
temples –
a body to small and
needles too large

both men died before
the birth of her child

her father spoke to her,
her father in law
listened. . .

“Don’t worry she will
survive and make you
proud.”

medical men entered
her room and mother
smiled.
medical men warned
her babies this small
do not survive –

mother, she knew –

daddy entered, she smiled.
told him their little girl
would survive
he pulled a chair up to her
bed, held her hand, and
listened

he probably smiled back
he must have warned her
to face the truth
mother, stubborn,
she believed

a few days passed, and
the medical men told her
again –
a week went by, and she
smiled
two weeks, and the medical
men stopped talking of
death –

mother peered through
glass at her baby –
lying inside a metal box –
inside with tubes and monitors
with no one to touch a child’s
grey skin.

She watched as a chest
was forced to expand
she prayed to herself –
she waved good bye -
thanking the medical men –
telling them she would be back

every day – to watch a child
who barely opened her eyes

there was no touching,
or cuddles, no wrapping
of tiny fingers around a her own,
no legs kicking, or laughing
when a child yawned, thinking
it was a smile

no one talked about their
little girl –
no one asked about the color
or her hair – her eyes or her
personality
no one asked if she looked
like mother or father . . .
no one talked.

mother, she believed

every day – from summers
end into dead leaves of fall
and onto ice on city walks,
she too walked up a hill
to the hospital to stare
through glass –
her walk home, eyes filled
with tears, she recited an
Irish prayer

every day after work
father walked up the hill
to stare at his child he
could not hold –
laying naked inside a metal
bed with tubes still
attached to her forehead.

he watched as nurses
tapped the soles of her
feet – to keep her awake
to suck on a miniature
bottle – she began to eat

It was the day before
Christmas - a snow
filled sky – when news
arrived – she could come
home.

three months and ten
days after her birth
she weighed five pounds

nurses wrapped her
in tiny booties
a white undershirt
a small pink dress
snuggled up inside pink
blankets

with open arms mother
held her little girl
peered into her open eyes
pinched her little hands
and feet

mother, she knew

on Christmas day inside a
neighbor’s car they brought
their little girl home

she looked at my father
and said, “I told you so,
she would survive.”

and, there beneath a
Christmas tree – I laid
inside a red wagon –
my older brother next to me
a red bow tied around my
forehead
Christmas and I finally
made it home.

Nancy Duci Denofio
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