if she was drugged

If she was drugged
or relieved and the baby whisked away, still
she gave this child every intricate bone of her feet,
the hollow vertebrae, tiny liver,
lungs that fill with air for the first time
and begin, without a lesson,
bringing this world in and releasing it.

From “The Human Line,” by Ellen Bass


The buka is rolling, falling, almost crawling. And so is her mother.