POETRY THE 2010 ANALECTA 

Late at Night, When My Mother Picked Me Up 
amy PFIFFERLING-IRONS 

i secretly peeked 
from under the purple and pink 
blanket when i should've 
been asleep. 

the knotted tassel tickled 
my lashes, when i 
took it between 
finger and fore, 

and rolled it around 
until my mother, 
flushed from dancing and snow, 
rubbed the swell of my girl belly. 

when she picked me 
up and hugged 

me close, 

i could touch the freedom 
in her happy clothes. 

68 

NON-FICTION 
That Other Family 
jenna GENSIC 

For weeks I was waitin 
his neonatologist was fighting 
weeks old and already sported 
of tubes and wires that would ~ 

high oxygen and regular blood 
baby, and couldn't help but fee 

The machinery, combir 
to transfer him out of his isole1 
and witnessed another set of p: 
at 24 weeks) across the room. 
gerous infection. The parents \ 
around the baby's isolette, han1 
thought. Not this moment, any 

Then came a beeping f 
nurses and doctors exchanged 
tone and its duration were seri 
heart; the mother wept into he: 
nurse set screens around the b; 
the bird-like body at high oxyi 
to the still child who needed tl 

The parents were esco1 
mother's hysterics and the urge 
chaplain entered the unit and I 
activities caring for other babi 
hallowed be thy name ... " The 
curred, touched by the staff's I 
were left behind with the doct