Bathing the New Born

I love with an almost fearful love
to remember the first baths I gave him,
our second child, so I knew what to do.
I laid the little torso along
my left forearm, the nape of the neck
in the crook of my elbow, hips nearly as
small as a least tern's tail
against my wrist, thigh held loosely
in the loop of thumb and forefinger, the
sign that means exactly right. I'd soap him,
the violet, cold feet, the scrotum
wrinkled as a waved whelk, the chest,
hands, clavicle, throat, gummy
furze of the scalp. When I got him too soapy he'd
slide in my grip like an armful of buttered
noodles, but I'd hold him not too tight,
I felt that I was good for him.
I'd tell him about his wonderful body
and the wonderful soap, and he'd look at me,
one week old, his eyes still wide
and apprehensive. I love that time
when you croon and croon to them, you can see
the calm slowly entering them, you can
sense it in your clasping hand,
the loose spine resting against
the muscle of your forearm, you feel the fear
leaving their bodies, he lay in the blue
oval plastic baby tub and
looked at me in wonder and began to
move his silky limbs at will in the water.

Sharon Olds, Strike Sparks: Selected Poems, 1980-2002 Copyright 2004 by Sharon Olds