New born babies don't have fully developed lungs
When I was thirteen my mother told me
The story of my birth,
December 29th 1995
She brought me home, but something wasn't
Right, because I was blue and didn't
Move
She took me to the children's hospital
Where I stayed for two weeks, but
This poem isn't about me,
Because there was a lot of other blue babies too
All with the same underdeveloped lungs
And still bodies,
There was one baby
Who was in the room next to mine,
Just beyond the thin hospital curtain
Every night her mother would sit next to
Her, her with tubes up and down her veins
Laying in that little plastic box
Meant to keep the blue babies alive
This women would sing Amazing Grace
To her newborn, and according to my mother
She had a beautiful voice
She was praying nothing would happen
To her blue baby, and so was
My mother, but for me
One night the women's voice wasn't singing
Anymore, the lullaby was over and she
Was screaming
Because I'm the one writing this poem
And her singing couldn't make her baby
Any less blue
That baby's little plastic box couldn't do its job,
So now the mother is feeling the same way
And the screaming was
Heart wrenching, something I never want to
Feel,
A scream my mother never wanted
To hear
Today I went into the ocean
And my lips turned blue, along with my hands and legs
I couldn't help myself from thinking
Of that blue baby and Amazing Grace
Sometimes I wish I was the
Blue baby, and that the Amazing-Grace-Mother's
Words could have meant something
More
Than the stillness of a baby with
Underdeveloped lungs