WAITING FOR DR. WILLIAMS

I’m on the kitchen floor

playing Rudy Vallee’s

“Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries”

on mother’s wind-up Victrola.

Grandma huddles over

Mother’s anguished howls.

Father runs back and forth

to the window, searching for

the Doctor’s Roadmaster

in the densely drifting snow.

The doctor’s wife said he left

Ridge Road an hour ago.

Despite skid chains, the Doctor

careens over a white fire of foam

on our un-plowed roads.

I hear them cheering mother on

like racing fans desperate

for a winner at the finishing line.

Drenched with sweat,

her face flushed as red

as the reddest red rose,

she pushes and pushes,

and finally bears down.

As the baby’s head begins to appear,

the Doctor’s not yet here.

The baby slips though her legs,

as the Doctor comes charging through

the front door.