Becoming midi: The Beginnings

​Becoming midi: The Beginning
 
Push, push, and emerge
Into cold air, white walls,
Gloved hands holding,
Spanking me to breathe?
And a howl
 That came from me.
Or did it?
I never thought to ask.
Did they place me on
My mother's chest?
Or did they whisk me away
To the quiet white room?
Several days later my mother and I
Went home.
But I turned yellow and had to
Return to the white room.
Actually a different one,
The ICU not the NICU.
Now gloved hands touched me,
A needle pricked my foot,
Drawing blood, giving blood.
I was reacting to my mother's negative blood
With my positive blood.
Masked faces, muffled voices
Then silence. Or not?  Buzzing of machines?
Never darkness.
Always white, white light, white walls.
My mother? Watching from the window?
Or at home with my brother and sister?
So many questions I never asked.
I only know my foot was pricked
So many times that they had trouble
Finding another spot to  prick.
Did I cry? I feel as though I did at first
But then stopped because it became routine
And crying didn't help.
Six weeks of blood transfusions,
Friends of my parents, my Dad's colleagues
Lined up to donate blood to me, even
Professor Papandreo, later ruler of  Greece.
I never told them all thank you.
I hope my parents did.
Six weeks. A critical time for a baby's
Development.
My mother said I was smiling
Before I came home.
So it couldn't have been too bad.
One learns to smile from seeing smiles, no?
So I must have seen faces without masks,
Faces smiling down at me.
But did anyone hold me? I think not.
They didn't do that then. They kept
Everything clean,  sterile.
Yet I l learned to smile.
To this day, I love smiles
And crave,  but do not seek, touch.
 

            The other day, as I sought
            Treasures from the past,
            I looked into my
            glass-doored cabinet.
            Saw a pair of red  booties.
            I never knew who or where,
            Just kept them
            because they were old.
            This time, I turned them over
            And saw a little slip of paper
            And learned they were mine.
            Given to me by my grandmother,
            My mother's mother,
            Never known to me.
            Just a vague figure
            From the past.
            A gift across
            time and place.
            So, thank you
            Olga Marie,
            Thank you for
            Thinking of me
            From the insane
            Asylum.