by Corey Mesler

I was assigned to the couple, heavy with child. I did not know them. They were names on the list. The list was passed around by the elders of the church. They were young and appealing, the wife's milk-rich breasts fubsy upon her chest. I told them, do not worry. I prevaricated, saying, I have assisted in many births. It will all happen the way the river happens. They relaxed. When the time came and the woman, lovely in her exertions, sweating and large, pushed the boy-child into the world, my hands were steady. They held the multicolored infant, slick with humors, as if he were pottery shards from a civilization previously unknown. And when the dark-haired boy spoke, naming the people gathered there, the parents were agog and thanked me as if I were the world's last shaman. I told them, this was unforeseen, a gift. The child looked at me with eyes as bottomless as the deep, as full of longing and as grave with knowing as my own. I held him a little closer because, at the end of the day, it was going to be hard to let him go, to let him live where he was born to live, far from me, far from any understanding I thought I had. That was my assignment, to take him where he was meant to be. The parents were the hard part. I make now no apologies.

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