Emergency C-Section with Partial Hindsight

By Ashley Kunsa

Issue 41 • Spring 2020 • Poetry

Listen: the body will only carry you so far. Light is one thing,
goodness quite another. And pain makes interventions

on its own behalf. Once, this city was a stranger to me. I don’t mean miraculous,
or even promising—I mean I was sixteen months in this place
before I recognized the call of a chuch bell ten blocks away.
How long does it take to arrive?

Last night I pressed your hand to my throat. What I wanted to feel was more alive
than I had in the moment they sliced through seven layers of flesh
to fish out a human who didn’t want this world. Who could blame him?
You both carried fear in your eyes.

An hour before, in the arms of the anesthesiologist,
I wept for the life I was desperate not to lose.

His or mine? Impossible to say from this distance. Listen: you are no more to blame
than the sheen scumming the pond, and gravity is the only thing
that promises your starstruck feet to the ground. That humming inside,
it could come from anywhere. Don’t discount sources unknown.

Ashley Kunsa

Ashley Kunsa’s fiction, poetry, and nonfiction appear in The Writer magazine, Sycamore Review, the Los Angeles Review, and Quarter After Eight, among many other publications. She is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT. You can find her online at www.ashleykunsa.com.

Tara Barr

Tara Barr is a lifelong art lover and a working mom in Washington, DC. She recently decided to make painting a high priority in her life after setting it aside for over a decade to focus on her family and her career in technology. Tara is inspired by great design, interesting details, and nostalgic memories. You can show your support following @tarabarr.art on Instagram.