juan de dios juan del diablo
Otras cosas curiosas
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Child/Bearing
Weeks before your arrival
I am frightened
of your impending and violent entrance
in my world
your presence has already been marked
by blood episodes/hospitals/needles
pains from a placenta/ill-placed
a sub-chorionic/hematoma
my vain form has suffered such distortion
veins enlarged/lungs squashed beyond efficient breathing
bloated and alone
I am waiting for the gush
the tearing of some expected membrane
that will force me to push forth
your profound babble
I am told your landing will show me
how much I don’t already know
will usher me to go where so many women
have gone/willing/unwilling
the tyranny of motherhood
has always been used as tool
to highlight out women’s inadequacies
never mind how gargantuan the push
to make life from that rush of red needed
to sustain life/make me better/you stronger
your movement inside me stills my tongue
my pen is all I am able to move
in these last days
together
we transform into some alien magic
beautiful and grotesque
we become some science experiment
the cosmos created/amazing and banal
because dogs do it
hogs do it
elephants everywhere angle their bodies
muddy with effort
they rip themselves to make passage
for what makes us creatures of survival
reproduction
replication of a self/narcissistic
our desire for our features reflected
human from one generation to the next
with gestation almost done
I still don’t understand
how we do it
nearly ten months(I cannot imagine why they tell us nine)
forty weeks/weak with the ungraceful details
of constipation
incontinence
vomiting and the urge to spit
constantly/some women do it again
and again
I lift my womb to them
artful Amazons arching the arrow of ovaries
to shoot patriarchy in the balls
more than once
no matter how they want to
male bodies are unable to do it
lions
tigers
or tyrants with dicks
do not possess the equipment to eject a child
fully formed
into the collective wisdom of our flawed existence
only women
with little less than a thimbleful of sperm
can carry the burden of bearer
such men must be jealous
or mad
may be why the weakest among them
call us the weaker sex
speak of us in derogatory terms
so firm are they in their deficient diction
they cast state-supported aspersions
on the abilities of daughters
and sisters
grandmothers who remain mothers
two and three times removed
men who know nothing of fibroids
and uterine cancers
of contractions or crowning
look at the blood
spilling monthly from my cunt
and decree to scorn me
adorn me with the smallest parts of the harvest
behind the camouflage of unconstitutional laws
they pay me less/yearly/hourly
compensation for my labor
dropping daily
under the duress of misogyny
and still some women are forced to do this
even when they don’t want to
by people
who care nothing
for the children who are borne
by these illegal proclamations
these people know
whoever controls the production of labor
controls the world and its wealth
health care is where the battle for women’s bodies
should begin and end
so men
with no first-hand knowledge of pregnancy
no experience of birthing children
tell us where to go
when to go
what pill we can take to prevent conception
the months before
the morning after
they decide which medications are illegal
at what age
Priests who are really
old men in dresses/straight/jackets
young men who write checks
and balance the business of birthing
babies/everything plugs into a matrix
of dollars and no good sense
to them our eggs are only currency
to be traded on a global market for profit
everyday
we are made victims of one crime or the other
perpetuated by those in places drunk with power
and still we choose do this
everyday
we grow large with hope
heave and heft our pelvic bones
toward the future of our species
often in blood and feces
we writhe with screams and sorrow
our joy mixed in with our most primal urges
we commit to bearing
all this
with the belief that humanity
is more than the sum of our collective failure
we still look to the days ahead
expecting more
from our children
the men/women they will become
we open our legs
our hearts
our arms
we open the most vulnerable parts of who we are
to keep doing this
generation after generation
bleeding/amniotic/umbilical
we splay our limbs to connect the dead
with the yet to be born
we do it
knowing there is more to being human
than this bloody evidence
smearing what remains of our errors
we arch or backs
and push
we blend magic and madness
making people
one liver
one kidney
one cranium
one heart beating
meaningful and rhythmic
one baby at a time
