I think my baby poked my heart
in utero with nail or toe.
What else could send my heart a swell
but a rush of care to clot a cut?

The contents of my chamber inflamed
began to leak sugar sweet,
treacle trickle kept a gash agape,
drip drop from rupture spot. 

Heart sap coated veins and bones.
Perspired through open pores
and filled the walls and halls of home
with sticky gold gone rogue.

A residue I could not undo 
or scrub from floors or bones
What was contained, pervades remains,
and now I know, I’m love.

Kelly Van Zandt raises two babies in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Her most recent works have appeared in Mother.LY and MOPS International. Inspired by her own shock of new motherhood Kelly recently completed her doula certification; she now works with mothers in her community, and she writes about the postpartum metamorphosis.