This story’s about my placenta, she said.
But the fifth floor came too soon.
Goodbye, elevator storyteller.
Elevator stories never finish.
They tell themselves later.
Whose placenta is it anyway?
The one that joined me to my infant—
Was that mine? Or his?
The one that joined me to my mother—
Was that mine? Or hers?
Yes, elevator storyteller, it is about placenta,
a gift from one stranger to another and back again.
Connection that enhances story. Veins. Vitamins.
Victuals from the rain, fresh air, and garden
down into the blood that’s fed and feeds.
And then comes the final push,
afterwards, afterbirth, bringing comfort, cradling,
shared fear of severing.
Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of five books of poetry, the most recent being Unattached Male, and three chapbooks with a fourth coming out in 2016. Her poetry, essays, and reviews are published widely in literary journals at home and abroad. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she is a member of the Poetry Board at the Folger Shakespeare Library.