Postmortem, Postpartum

Postmortem, says my husband when we bring the baby

home. He gets things wrong sometimes.

He has his beliefs: nonmicrowavable dishes

are microwaveable under 30 seconds;

ChapStick’s a ploy to weaken the lips,

creating the need for more ChapStick.

First the baby was breached, then beached,

which wasn’t that far off—a boy-whale

wedged on the distant shore of that other

world within me.When they cut

him out, and I felt nothing, and I saw nothing,

my sense of smell ramped up

the way a blind musician unpacks many layers

within a single note. I smelled the laundered

bedding and the anesthesiologist’s

citrusy breath. There was the previous night’s labor

sweat, but mostly cauterized flesh—

like damp hair singed in a curling iron,

only worse.Days later, when my husband

splashes bacon grease on the burner, and

smoke scales the pan, and laces the hall, I swear it’s

me, smoldering still, from the inside out,

like the charred cage of a house

burned down overnight. Its fat armchairs

and stocked pantry and the bad wires no one suspected: all

cinders collapsing under their own weight,

releasing sudden puffs well into the next day.

I shouldn’t get up, my husband says. So

he pats down the bacon and delivers it couchside,

directly on the stainless steel TV tray.

Some things he gets exactly right.