Dilation and extraction
(or I’ll never be half a football field of nerves)
A cell for a sitcom’s length,
in a cell, a miniature galaxy
pregnant with possibility,
alien with big black eyes waiting . . .
for the vacuum, of space is not
my home, I leave my feeble cells to
my mom in my will to
fight off disease for decades.
Flush at my own funeral, medical waste:
somatic septic sewer cells of
fetus mixing with fecal matter, or
dioxins in the air incinerating lungs
of pets and actual children–that wouldn’t be Green-
Pieces: umbilical, ambivalent, paraxial, personal.
A Gorey Inconvenient Truth and Choice: about warming in an oven
already too full for responsibility to try, try,
-mester the strength to ultra a sound. . .
In the case of the life of the mother
“I guarantee! or your friendship back”
he promises
lay down your problems and back IN my paper tray,
I’ll journal, write now
and male them OUT next Wednesday’s
child is full of Roe, love is murder?
choosing some
aborting hundreds of little verses
and I consented to everyone, every time,
“Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?” Trying to pick up
the paper whispers in my ear
that my pen is running up and down the page–
just like men, no commit,
my uterus expands for another and
halts its periodic ink
for my beautiful child.
Your dream girl
shits and pisses and bleeds and winces–
especially during the miracle of life.
She is not some smooth plastic object or mechanized road machine.
She is a living organism breathing and trying to find her way through life,
weak and strong, brimmed with success and tragedy–
the solemn and the sullen, the giggle and the hiccup.
She is fluid and fickle, steadfast and solid–
awaiting your coming, yet venturing forth without you.
She is your dream girl but never was a dream.