Large with Poem

by Dudley Stone

“I am large with poem” — anonymous, apocryphal, possibly misheard
After Wisława Szymborska’s “To My Own Poem”

There’s no Planned Parenthood,
only the overflowing trash
filled with your unborn sibs
disposed of without shame or compassion.
I won’t apologize because I can’t keep my pen
in my pants.
Before you were real
I questioned the wisdom of you,
before you crowned and I christened you
like a ship with champagne
and lay back for a well-deserved rest,
before I resented you
for wrecking my figure
and turning my sweet milk sour,
I lay in bed, increasingly ill.
Even if it’s one thing DNA denies me,
I wonder if I’m not just a little bit
pregnant.