EVE

of every woman I am first. imagine
me falling off a cliff. imagine me drowning
in the tide. my belly growing big, for what?
no one can tell me what’s going on.
nausea I don’t understand, weeping for
hormones with no name. prayer with
no answer, when before I looked up
and everything was there. desert
instead of garden, a green twig bending,
bending, never snapping, and I am in
labor forever. no midwife, no mother,
no sister, no friend. I say goodbye to everything
because I’m sure that I will die. this is mine
alone. I remember the curse, it made no sense.
no knowledge could prepare me for this.
it is not pain, it’s the end of the world. I walk
through it, screaming, to find somewhere new.
—Amy Bornman, Broken Waters (Fernwood Press 2024)

A friend sent me this poem today with the note, “Mostly I like this recognition that Eve would suffer from having no other woman to ask for information and support.” What a terrifying thought.

I like the lines,

“I remember the curse, it made no sense.
no knowledge could prepare me for this.”

Because all my own weeks of prepared childbirth classes could barely scratch the surface of what it was like to give birth for the first time. I went into it holding tight to what I thought I knew. I knew nothing. I was absolutely in for it. What a ride.

I have it all written down in a notebook I gave to my oldest daughter. I could borrow it back, the only journal I’ve ever kept successfully (surprise! a writer who doesn’t journal) but that’s okay. It’s enough to say that when it comes to giving birth for the first time, we are all Eve.

This poem does a beautiful job of capturing that.