Baby Sister

by Shannon Phillips

I can’t comfort you

in your hospital room,

your baby down the hall,

the new velvet of her

accessorized

with tubes and sensors.

You are no longer

all she knows.

I can’t comfort you

because I don’t know if everything

will be okay. Even as a young child,

I knew okay was a gift, not a guarantee.

I haven’t forgotten my own

pregnancy; the untimely ultrasounds

—too early, I’m sorry, we found a cyst that could be…

—too late, He is breech. You’re due in a week?

I haven’t forgotten

my placenta hovering over

the birth canal, a fleshy barge

bearing signs warning of rupture, hemorrhage.

I can tell you that a healthy child now

does not erase the memory of our time

as stewards of the hall light,

as guardians of breath,

executors of presses

to the bottom of a brand new foot, seeking

that red bloom around our thumbs.

I hug your husband,

but I can’t hold you right now,

can’t come too near

lest you find out that I am afraid, too.

For what use is a big sister fallen

apart?

* * * * *

Shannon Phillips is a freelance editor and aspiring translator (Arabic-English) who earned her MFA in creative writing from California State University, Long Beach. She has two chapbooks: Body Parts with dancing girl press and My Favorite Mistake with Arroyo Seco Press. When she isn’t busy reading Nordic noir or letting her tea get cold, she can be found napping with her Russian Blue. She is also the founding editor of Picture Show Press.