Josh Luckenbach

Folds

Five spinning origami swans above
the exam table in the doctor’s office

remind me of a childhood scene I’d lost:
my brother, for hours, folded over instruction manuals,

creasing dragons and fish from square sheets,
still years before our mom would say he lacked

patience for a thing like that. These days, she jokes
that my brother’s son will be like him and mine like me—

one brash, the other mild—a difference clear
from the womb, she says, so I listen for,

but cannot hear, between the metronomic pulses
of the monitor against my wife’s bare flesh,

some telltale ghost note in the heartbeat of the boy,
our first, who’s curled and turning inside her water.

You two always seem so relaxed—
he’s going to be a chill baby, the doctor says,

wiping from my wife the cold, transparent jelly
the machine sees through, or sees more

clearly through, so that no mistakes are made.
Down the hallway, just in case, we schedule

next week’s appointment, knowing the baby
could come before then—knowing there’s no way

of knowing these sorts of things for sure.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Josh Luckenbach's recent work has appeared in The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Nimrod, Birmingham Poetry Review, New Ohio Review and elsewhere. He received his MFA from the University of Arkansas. He currently serves as Managing Editor for Iron Horse Literary Review and as Web Editor for the Coalition for Community Writing.