Bathing the New Born

I love with an almost fearful love

to remember the first baths I gave him -

our second child, our first son -

I laid the little torso along

my left forearm, nape of the neck

in the crook of my elbow, hips nearly as

small as a least tern's hips

against my wrist, thigh held loosely

in the loop of thumb and forefinger,

the sign that means exactly right. I'd soap him,

the long, violet, cold feet,

the scrotum wrinkled as a waved whelk shell

so new it was flexible yet, the chest,

the hands, the clavicles, the throat, the 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 up 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 little spine relaxing 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, The New Yorker October 15, 1984