Murder Ballad

Rain opened wounds on the lake

and road puddles. Dawn Fine, the mid-wife 

held the baby up to the lamp. 

Everyone in the family saw

the aberration from their own angle:

the knife that was born with her,

buried in the side of her head. 

This was far deep in 

           country, several hundred years

           beyond the nearest city, where a

           natural death was always more natural.

           Villages on the edges of lakes… 

           Farms trailing off like ellipses…

           hills in various stages of pregnancy. 

    The youngest daughter with the pale

skin and freckles in her hair, shy as grass

that folds over to one side when the wind blows it, 

ruptured like a dandelion 

                              under sudden breath. 

The man who began the baby in her,

soon as he took the youngest part of her, fled. 

Hence the small, leather-handled knife

buried in his half-born daughter's head. 

The mid-wife said,

She'll die by morning

if we don't remove it.

She'll die now, if we do, said her father. 

Has to be done gently, said

the oldest woman in the room, like 

separating twins. After dropping statements

on the table

and comparing the length of them, 

they decided to let the night 

find the morning 

                     where it could. 

At dawn, they rose to check on

the baby, the knife, and the 

daughter, and saw, like sharp

outlines of a hard, new parable--

the daughter had died, while the baby and knife

had lived.