I bet you're worried.

I was there when her vagina opened./ We were all there: her mother, her husband, and I,/ and the nurse from the Ukraine with her whole hand/ up there in her vagina feeling and turning with her rubber/ glove as she talked casually to us--like she was turning on a loaded faucet.// I was there in the room when the contractions made her crawl on all fours,/ made unfamiliar moans leak out of her pores and still there after hours when she just screamed suddenly/ wild, her arms striking at the electric air.// I was there when her vagina changed/ from a shy sexual hole/ to an archaeological tunnel, a sacred vessel,/ a Venetian canal, a deep well with a tiny stuck child inside,/ waiting to be rescued.// I saw the colors of her vagina. They changed./ Saw the bruised broken blue/ the blistering tomato red/ the gray pink, the dark;/ saw the blood like perspiration along the edges/ saw the yellow, white liquid, the shit, the clots/ pushing out all the holes, pushing harder and harder,/ saw through the hole, the baby's head/ scratches of black hair, saw it just there beyond/ the bone--a hard round memory, as the nurse from the Ukraine kept turning and turning/ her slippery hand.// I was there when each of us, her mother and I, held a leg and spread her wide pushing/ with all our strength pushing/ and her husband sternly counting, "One, two, three,"/ telling her to focus, harder./ We looked into her then./ We couldn't get our eyes out of that place.// We forget the vagina, all of us/ what else would explain/ our lack of awe, our lack of wonder.// I was there when the doctor/ reached in with Alice in Wonderland spoons/ and there as her vagina became became a wide operatic mouth/ singing with all its strength;/ first the little head, then the gray flopping arm,/ then the fast/ swimming body, swimming quickly into our weeping arms.// I was there later when I just turned and faced her vagina./ I stood and let myself see/ her all spread, completely exposed/ mutilated, swollen, and torn,/ bleeding all over the doctor's hands/ who was calmly sewing her there.// I stood, and as I stared, her vagina suddenly/ became a wide red pulsing heart.// The heart is capable of sacrifice./ So is the vagina./ The heart is able to forgine and repair./ It can change its shape to let us in./ It can expand to let us out./ So can the vagina./ It can ache for us and stretch for us, die for us/ and bleed and bleed us into this difficult, wondrous world./ So can the vagina./ I was there in the room./ I remember.