No 3

Oh to know the smell of birth in that old creepy house just blocks away from the border with plug-in heaters

and that doorbell that kept me up at night 

waiting

or the alarm to switch those bloody sheets now clean into the dryer at 2am

just in case

the endless cups of black tea with honey and milk for long slow labor sits

that sinking feeling at 7am after a long night of waiting to fill out a transfer papers for her to go where she wanted to go all along

the relief to go and crawl into that hand me down king size bed

the anger

and now 5 years later the deep gratitude for all of it.