a poem about being a childless woman. |
WOMAN, BE THOU INFERTILE! what a mess. she can guess how poor old Sarah in the Bible felt before the angel relented and implanted Isaac. DON'T WORRY, DEAR, he said, WHAT'S FORTY YEARS OF PAIN? YOU'RE ALL GOD'S CHILDREN. If she must be big fat she'd rather be that sow with eighteen teats knee-deep in shit rope-throated for the butcher's knife but still smiling from ear to ear as the teats are eighteen ways caressed. she a mere self, and the sow a goddess yes unfathomable karma of the squealing universe BALLS said the angel LUDICROUS CONCEIT do you want your legs spread and the guts pulled from you as a living head? worry, guilt, potty training teenage dropout drugs no gratitude? WOMAN OF THE NEW MILLENIUM veil yourself in friendship, sex, career, be a man if you will get therapy, adopt an orphan THERE ARE FAR, he cried, TOO MANY CHILDREN IN THE WORLD what is she, then, since her body has failed to repay? only (as Lawrence gently said of Connie Chatterly) a thing of terrors, humiliation worse far worse than immorality there are sisters who exercise choice but she is not one the womb has her in thrall to its useless bloat and vomit as the moon darkens her room ovaries lie in her brain like unpicked fruit imploding even in sleep SHE WANTS TO KILL THE CHILD WITHIN HER how do you mothers feel about that? |