This Is the Floor Where No Babies Are Saved

The first time
you’re wheeled up
to Winnie Palmer’s eighth floor
you don’t know—
the shock
has not worn off.
The tile shines
hypnotizes
hotel-like;
then the chair is parked
at the nurse’s station,
a check-in desk
to this resort
no one wanted.

The first time
you swaddle your hope
hold it close
pray so hard it hurts
for the doctors to be wrong
for your son to hang on
for a few more weeks
enough time
to make the tiny set of lungs
he needs.

The first time
you don’t know
a baby at twenty-one weeks
is beautiful
the size of your hand.

The first time
you don’t know
as you’re wheeled back out
a scrap of your soul will stay
packed away for a year
in a closet full of boxes—
row upon row
of unimaginable loss
and too-small footprints.

The second time
you know.

Jill Sebacher graduated from the University of Central Florida with an MA in English and since 2000 has been teaching composition and creative writing at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Cypress Dome, The Valencia Forum, The Fox Hat Review, Wizards in Space, and the Harry Potter Alliance’s spoken word/music album, Resistance Is Magic.