in a tent pitched in a corner of the deck

      you lit wax candles

             soaked sponges with liquor

          infused hot water with chamomile and hartshorn

                   pointed her to the stool

              held it still while she

          squatted and her

     baby, through gravity, dropped, slimy, into your hands
                  ignoring the burn playing in the space between warmth and

                                    fire travelling along your inner

                               wrist, you listened to her eyes, lifted water to her lips, pressed

                      sponge to brow for
centuries, back on land, you’d answered to the church letting them

      know if any mother had killed their child or

            conducted a heathen ritual with their placenta
                                here, far from surveillance and steeples, you

                                     helped my ancestors

                                              return to what the doctor called

                                           a ‘natural state of good health’1 as if
                          nature might be separate from knowledge from

                   sponge from tendon
1Dr. Bland, quoted in Sian Rees, The Floating Brothel, p.176.