An invisible anaconda took hold of me around 4.30pm
It was sneaky.
I ignored it and carried on with the ironing
until I could no longer deny that
the anaconda was squeezing me at
regular intervals,
every five minutes.
It pressed on whilst doctors talked,
midwives hushed
and ten trainee doctors gawped.
The anaconda bit away rational thought
as it prepared its finally assault.
In a final bid to dull the beast,
I breathed in gas and air
the beast struck back by
ejecting the contents of my stomach
wrapping itself around my body
squeezing ever harder until
my body violently twitched
arms striking out,
mouth,shouting profanities.
The snake then shot through my body like
lightening and exited
and left my body with the nose of a wolf,
the cunning of a fox
and the strength of a bear.
My hands shake with adrenaline
as I wash off the blood.
my breasts contract and leak out milk
when I hear primal battle cries from the rooms.
The nurse urges me to take the brown pills
but the drug is no match for my body.
A tattoo begins to hum through me;
‘Where’s the baby? Where’s the baby?’.
The nurse relents and points the way
to a special room full of
babies that look like wizened old men
hooked up to machines.
My new wolf nose sniffs her out.
My cunning heart tells me
not to love her yet.
My body moves of its own accord
every day up the hill
brain is frozen
bland smile for the nurses
breasts squeezed and pumped
by an old fashioned machine.
The baby is in a glass case.
Fingers itch to touch her
but brain says no, not yet.
Other Mums cry
but the tears won’t come until
the end
of this ordeal.
Brain orders these visits
into four hour shifts of
climb,
pump,
sit.
Stomach has shrunk back to size
no-one can tell of the ordeal.
A blur of time passes.
and then then it’s time
to sync body to brain
and take the baby home
and start to love it.
Deadly , Delicate is a new release from Kate Garrett , a Sheffield poet who founded a motley crew of a webzine called 
In prism 