Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Brent NewsomJune 08, 2009

"Beyond lithe triceps, bulging biceps,
above taut calves and washboard abs,
unsurpassed by lats and hams
is our mother muscle hustling
blood through her brood of tubes,
muscle by which all other muscles flex.


What-what-what-what-what-
wafts through the Doppler mike
held against the slight, gelled
swell of your mother’s uterus.
Your body’s first voice
utters a stutter
I have no answer for.

Praise the four-chambered
orchestra playing staccato
sonate da camera in your chest,
percussive as the timpani,
or more so: allegro, vivace, presto
how would Mozart mark
one hundred sixty sixteenth notes
per sixty seconds? Prestissimo.

We’ll take you home to four small rooms—
one just for you. We’ll paint your name
in bubble letters on the wall, hang balloons
in a corner. Your mother hugging you
to her breast, we’ll step through the door
of our old, asthmatic apartment
with an April wind rushing in behind,
fresh oxygen borne in our blood.

Brent Newsom

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
16 years 1 month ago
Beautifully made and moving poem. Thank you, Brent.
Edgardo Martinez
16 years 1 month ago
A beautiful homage to life - in just a few words, the author describes an almost mystical moment. It couldn't be less. Great poem.
SARAH MELICI
15 years 1 month ago
Brought back memories. I love the "four chambered orchestra...." Beautiful, movng...

The latest from america

Frank Turnbull, S.J., a longtime editor at 'America' who died earlier this week, is remembered as a humble, quiet and yet forceful presence to those who knew him during his 85 years of life.
James T. KeaneJuly 18, 2025
A Reflection for Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time, by Zac Davis
Zac DavisJuly 18, 2025
Trauma-informed spirituality knows better than to promise that prayer will take away all the pain. But it can offer the hope that, even in the midst of pain, there can be moments of feeling whole.
Nicole KirpalaniJuly 18, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned Pope Leo XIV, who urged Israel’s leader to revive negotiations and enact a ceasefire.