the color and the name : birth

black is for birth. white is for death.
red is for everything in between.  
   
but her birth was ripped from death's pale hands.  
it's always been a wonder.  
   
the air was that of mourning.  
her father sat in the waiting room;  
weeping and praying and weeping.  
the doctors had prepared for a stillborn.  
   
she arrived tiny, skeletal--  
more a fetus than a baby.  
   
but she arrived with breath,  
and breath enough to scream.  
   
and the scream that split the hospital halls  
was red as her mother's blood.