Photo by Ramiro Martinez on Unsplash
by Amy Barnes
I give birth at the post office as boxed baby chicks chirp and cheer me on from the counter, my impromptu birth partners. I Lamaze-pant in my yoga pants in front of customers clutching letters and parcels and toddlers. After a postal employee wraps my newborn baby in a mail sack, he weighs and meters her on the scale that measures grandma birthday cards and Amazon returns. Do you want insurance or a notification he asks? I don’t have an answer and simply shake my head yes, tears dropping on the baby chicks that I can’t take home either because there’s no one there to take care of them. Even though I look away as I’ve always planned, I can still see them drop her in with the day’s packages and letters and junk mail, a row of LOVE stamps placed on her forehead by a kindly female postal worker humming a lullaby.
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Amy Barnes writes and edits for many journals and has three collections of stories published by independent presses, including CHILD CRAFT in 2023.
