Terhi K. Cherry
WHEN ARE YOU HAVING CHILDREN?
I heard NASA found water
on the moon’s sunlit side. I thought it was barren,
like Becky’s cousin, an addict, who conceived
with her meth-cooking boyfriend.
Sarah’s younger sister lives on soda and chicken,
expecting her second child. I'm having a hard time
believing I should give up
my cup of coffee.
Every morning I stumble,
eyes half shut into the bathroom. Pee in a cup.
Line up dollar store sticks like suspects,
month after a month, a blank stare.
Because Venus can’t support life in thick atmospheres,
I cut carbs. Because the dress left hanging
on the changing room door belongs to a woman
whose children all died.
The front porch shrouded in wisteria,
choking out anything living.
Like the lining of the womb grows into wrong places,
no mother should bury her children.
Every nest I built has shed, each shade of blood
turned to rust, month after month I searched
for the same information on discussion boards:
What if it’s bright red?
A trigger warning. It’s not a baby dance:
It’s Peggy pressuring her depressed boyfriend,
because the app screams ovulation.
It’s not baby dust: It’s cum.
It’s her face wet from crying because he couldn’t finish.
It’s her knocked-up dentist pushing tools
inside her mouth, smirking,
how women bang their husbands all wrong.
It’s women meeting donors
in Starbucks restrooms, a needless syringe in handbags.
It’s nitrogen tanks, empty bank accounts,
because the insurance won’t cover.
When Hannah walked from Harlem to the Hudson River,
she swore by exercise. Saw seven pregnant ladies.
The clinic called. None of her eggs had fertilized.
She could try another round,
take another needle, open her legs to a harvest
like a gut-hooked fish thrown back in the sea.
Or she could break some windows.
She too had tried Mucinex, Robitussin, grapefruit juice.
Flushed her tubes with Xi Xian Cao.
Bit into pineapple core. Hung upside down,
pillows under her hips, thinking
she can’t methylate. She breathes four-seven-eight,
slips on a dress, hides unruly ovaries, sits by the door
in a baby shower crowd, choking
on the name choices, the nursery décor.
A woman taps my hand, wants to know
when I am having children.
I wonder if she’s heard,
on the outskirts of Rome they bury tissue
scraped from women’s wombs,
display the women’s names on a cross.
I want to tell her, a witch in Kalamazoo
hand-poured me a candle, I smeared it
with what came out of me.
Burned it for three days, found a dead moth
in the cutlery drawer, a pigeon’s egg
near my door. My mother just dangled her legs
out the window, and my father asked
for a smoke. In the next picture,
my brother was born.
I wish the moon would break its water,
bring the rain, drench me.