‘May.be’ 5

En in een waterwieg, achter in zee —
[And in a water cradle, back at sea —]

– Herman Gorter: Mei. Een gedicht. 1889.

you flatly refused to give birth in a bath or sea
and i dreamt up a thousand reasons to divine
the meaning of Äkta människor from a smile 
as the cathode rays flooded the lounge room—
the peaks and troughs of that ridiculous plot!
we sipped alcohol-free glögg and waited for 
christmas though it was summer (and so hot. 
she finally arrived with the softest of clunks  
just like Belinda Carlisle’s “Summer Rain”—
that sunset turned our small lives’ volume up 
like a mystic waterwheel spraying vitamin D
the golden cream of birth rubbed in her eyes
nestling between us in a hotel room for days  
sink-bathed and wrapped up in stolen towels
the angry barnmorska bursting in to wake us
squeezing drops of milk into a medicine cup
lips glistening like sugar as they cut her cord
her dreams released, her tiny mouth (asleep.
we could hear the worlds she was breathing
fountains of sunlight she gurgled into being 
blessed with sweet but lukewarm apple cider 
toothpicks in smörgåsar—tiny Swedish flags
grow older by the second on the plastic tray
her little index finger laughs our days aside—
we photograph a head resting on a tiny arm 
as the sheepish pixies sound their fine alarm

Notes:

Äkta människor [Real People]: Swedish TV series (2012-14)
Glögg (SE): Scandinavian glühwein
Barnmorska (SE): midwife
Smörgåsar (SE): open sandwiches

This is the fifth stanza of my reimagining of Herman Gorter’s poem, ‘Mei’ [May], which was first published in Dutch in 1889.

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