My Baby is 5 Months • Postpartum Body Poem #6
Postpartum Body Poem #6
My little baby girl is 5 months today. Incredible. Everything about having a baby.
Receiving the light
My pupils delicate, bright
The sun, the one, everything has come undone
…for the better
My breast, plump, and young when filled with nectar for my little one
Stretched and pulled awry once she is nurtured and no longer cries
My sex, my sex, my womanhood, my seat, my undercarriage, the thing that some say define me
My passageway, my vessel for a new life
Is changed forever
Is it for the better?
The sexiness
The smell
I don’t recognize her
I dwell
I yearn for the sensuous cat
Once pursued
She hibernates through motherhood
She
The vaginal walls
The clitoris
The missed feeling of bliss
How I missed that swept away feeling
But I’m so in love
I am so in love!
So in love with this,
Nicoletta
It’s like all of my insides left or packed up once this new experience embarked
Be n
How to write the words
Make it pretty
Be nice
Dress things up
(so many women enticed)
You are a wife
A mother
“But I was also a lover”
Now breast perkiness has a timer
Wet lips below
I no longer know
Is it my armpits or my sense of smell
“God, it’s enhanced and my natural deodorant rebels
But my baby, she loves me
She hugs me
She nurses
She wants to roll around and live in all of my parts
She will be happy to suckle sagging breasts
She will grasp my, “no longer” 4 pack belly
While I think of my bikini of the past
She loves me more nude
How strange the love affair and its evolution
I fall deeper in love with this life we created
My mind stays attached to my former
Slim, tight, strong
SELF
My body, more soft
My time, more full yet, free
My life has new love.
~Natalie Rand
November 12, 2017
Photo courtesy of Natalie Rand
~This poem is part of a series of poems written by new mothers as part of a postpartum group/mothers’ circle facilitated by Britta Bushnell. The assignment was for each new mother to introduce their bodies to themselves and the group through poetry. Mothers were given the following instructions:
“Spend some time getting to know your new mother’s body. Pay attention to your body and how it has changed. Then, write a poem about it in the following format:
This is my (body part) it (what it does for you now as a parent/mother/woman).
Or…These are my ______, they______. (for plural parts like eyes, ears, hands, etc.)
Include your reproductive/sexual parts (breasts, belly, and vagina/yoni/your word choice) and a few others as well. Identify at least 8 body parts. New parents have limited time and adding something to your already busy schedule might make you grimace. Please try it! It’s a POWERFUL process.”
A new poem will be shared each Saturday morning for the next few months. If you would like to write and submit a poem to be shared, please contact Britta.
