Songs for Billy
On the eve of our almost baby, baby in waiting, baby to come, baby pending, I have no calm in me, not waiting able, though I wait and wait and wait. All of the waiting for their first. So attenuated, so troubled. Joyously here: I do not rest assured; I am not wholly confident.
8 lbs. 9 oz. 20 inches long, with a very round punim, he safely born. Three rounds of IVF, led to 3 viable zygotes. Frozen since before Covid, winter of 2019. Covid stopped surrogate search. Suspended. One delay the miraculous natural horrendously complicated pregnancy and birth of his older sister. Once his surrogate was found many months of Zoom meetings, documents signed, lawyers, psych tests. Then the thawing, then the transplant—all could have gone awry. Now miraculously here, round fat, eats easy, poops, has already peed in his mother’s face.
So a child is born, a child has come. The second child of my only child. Once paused, a possibility. Still now heis. He has arrived. On Saturday, his 8th day, his name will be told to us. Always a miracle—when a child is born. Whatever their journey, always a miracle.
Our little Snuffaluggagus, has array of snuffs and gasps, whistles and grunts and wheezes. He’s learning to breathe here on earth. He sleeps and sleeps and sleeps and eats and sleeps. The creaturewho sleeps against my chest these late winter afternoons was frozen for close to three years. I’d think of him then so like any decent Nonna, I’d think, I have to bring a tiny blanket and wrap him in it—he’s too cold in there. Now we lay together next to the tall windows overlooking the quiet street where the translucent winter light comes through the darkened branches. I pull the elephant blanket over him and the large gray on over both of us while I rock us both to sleep. Neighbors walk by in the solstice light.
Coming on 3 Years Later
My son and I took Billy, to the Natural History Museum here in Pittsburgh to see the leopard sleeping stretched across a branch in the tree above a bench. Last time Billy had concluded, “That the leopard is sleeping up there.” The direction we approached this time made it clear the leopard’s eyes were open. “That leopard is not sleeping!” Billy declared. He climbed onto the bench under the tree and lay his head in my lap. “Billy is not afraid of that leopard,” he said over and over, until we got home.
There he said over and over, “That leopard scared Billy.”
“Body, why aren’t you listening to me? Body?” Billy is talking to his almost three-year-old body. “You are not doing what I’m telling you.” Billy’s very involved with his body. When he’s happy he pats his belly.
He’s trying so hard to do everything his big sister can do. She’s five and can color inside the lines. She writes letters and numbers and runs faster. Sometimes she hugs and laughs with him. Sometimes she says, “You’re too little. And if you don’t listen, you’re not going to get any dessert after dinner.”
Her tone a perfect scold.
About the Author
Joanna Clapps Herman 52 pieces published since 2020 include poems, short stories, micro fiction, essays. Book length publications include: When I am Italian: Quando sono italiana, No Longer and Not Yet and The Anarchist Bastard: Growing Up Italian in America and edited two anthologies: Wild Dreams and Our Roots Are Deep with Passion. Find her at joannaclappsherman.com
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