Should Have

Photo by Gabriel Tovar on Unsplash

In the coming month, I'll be sharing some new poems about raising my son. I'm working to complete a new collection.

Should Have
1974 

Six weeks since we met
yet here Ray stands
in my birthing room
a prospective father?
I’m bearing down, 
tearing open 
As I push my child free
Ray blanches,
drops to the floor
Thwump.

Baby Bird not set in my arms,
instead plunked 
in a bassinet 
shrieking 
while staff rush to revive 
this man slumped 
on the ground.

I should have known, 
I should have known then
it was all about him.