Tiny Fingers: A poem for my niece, Jocelyn

Here is a draft (I think) of a poem I wrote this week for my niece, who came home from the hospital earlier this week:

TINY FINGERS
for Jocelyn, seven days old

by Hank Kalet

Tiny fingers

like the smallest twigs
tossed off trees
in a storm, scattered

across the yard,

fragile, like the last
warm day of fall
or news pages

dried and yellowed,

flitting in the breeze,
or a moment of quiet
in Khartoum, in Baghdad

or on the back streets

of this coughing
industrial city.
I can feel you

twitch and turn

in my arms
against the rhythms
of your new breath

under fluorescent lights,

against the hum
of air conditioning and
pinch of feeding tubes,

in your room with a view

of the city and the river,
with our voices, set
like sax solos above

the clinical din

of machines.
What could you
be thinking, dreaming,

seven days old,

nurses on strike
outside your window,
as you raise your hand,

cover your face,

try to pull
the tape off
that holds your

feeding tube

in place?
What could you
be thinking,

fragile fall day

the sun out,
your parents
waiting to take you

home.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick