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

July 16 marks 80 years since the first atomic bomb was detonated. The specter of nuclear annihilation has been with us ever since.
James T. KeaneJuly 15, 2025
David Corenswet in a scene from "Superman" (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
The first time we see the titular hero of James Gunn’s new film “Superman,” he doesn’t descend from the heavens. He plummets.
John DoughertyJuly 15, 2025
If we imagine ourselves as satisfying a God who will “give us” things only if we do the “right things,” then our relationship with God becomes less a friendship and more a chore.
James Martin, S.J.July 15, 2025
For 13 years, Josep Lluís Iriberri, S.J. has guided pilgrims along the same trail St. Ignatius walked over 500 years ago.