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I only understood Hajar when my baby got a fever
It was late & we were just off Medicaid
& above the poverty line but not enough
for insurance plans or private doctors
It was my first baby. I didn’t know
when not to worry. I knew high fevers
could damage brains if left too long
I knew the little body felt wrong,
shook slightly, eyes rolled back,
not responding to acetamenophine
The on-call at the ER was busy,
didn’t phone back it seemed like hours
while I paced like Ethiopian Hagar in her desert
watching Ismaël’s small sunken chest
gasp up & down in throes of thirst
She did not bend over the body
waiting for what grace might come
She shook her fist at the angel: Help us.
It was not a plea
I went through lists of people I knew
—who would know what to do for babies?
who would wake to worry with me?—
wringing the bouquets of useless roses
they’d laid at the foot of motherhood
I hated knowing I would humble myself
to phone them in the middle of the night,
to stand with arms down by my side
however long, whatever their conditions,
if they would tell me what the baby needed now
Hagar, no roses here—
Motherhood is bitter fighting
against death-forces
in a desert of indifference
Provide water! Provide balm
If there is any salve in the world,
it is for this, here, now: the infant, small flames
that rise in irises to flicker like tigers
