He’s ours the whole night through
and there’s no shaking this problem.
(We’ll do better with the next one.)

My crooked nose on that misshapen skull,
you started brewing on that second date
when I went home alone
hating your father for all I hadn’t done.
I swore to my mother I would never have you—
not you, of course, I didn’t know you then—
but some you I couldn’t oblige, squeezed
out of this swollen, bleeding bluff
that could not imagine swallowing pain for anyone but herself.

And I still can’t—sometimes I don’t know if I chose you or if I allowed you,
if I wanted you or if I accepted you.
But what’s the difference, when I choose you now?
You’re here, my Wednesday prince.
And I will not calculate your absence because I did not know my own.

– Allison Lamberth

Author’s Note: I am not a poet by any means, but two nights after the birth of my son, this odd little poem came out at 2 a.m. (after my husband began his shift with the baby). It depicts the rush of emotions that any parent can identify with in those bizarre, terrifying first hours with a newborn in your life.