“Second Gratitude,” by Rebecca Foust (Poetry ’10)

“Second Gratitude” and “Divine Apparitions,” poems by 2010 alum Rebecca Foust, were recently featured in Narrative. Read an excerpt of “Second Gratitude” below:

Second Gratitude

YOURS WAS AN easy birth, daughter,
quick & without forceps or knife or long
savage silence; you burst the world with a wail,
then sought my breast. Your brain
was unbruised; you were intact, un-anything:
ICU’d, IV’d, EKG’d, transfused, gavaged,
or otherwise scanned & perused.
We came home the next day, where
you ate & shat & dreamed & slept & slept—
what they always say babies do.

Read the poem in its entirety here: https://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/poems-week-2020-2021/poem-week/second-gratitude-rebecca-foust