Baby Girl Found - Francette Cerulli

He found her wrapped in a brown towel
Beside the highway department dumpster.
She was so cold she was blue, so new
her umbilical stump still drooped softly
from her belly like the limp stem
of some fantastic fruit.

He picked her up in his huge gloved
highway department hands and
carried her to his truck. Inside the cab
he turned on the light, peeled the damp towel
from her body and held her
under the blast of the truck heater.

Giant midwife bent over her in the frozen morning,
He watched for the smallest sign.
It was her second birth.

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Francette Cerulli (born 1949) USA