Pregnant

POSTED IN contemporary poetry September 29, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pregnant

Elopes. Pregnant the first week.
Turns eighteen. Glows.
At commencement, her mama’s face
burns, but she is proud to show
the bulge beneath her skirt—

her life-till-now’s work.
The world is her bouquet—
dogwood with ten-penny wounds,
lacy fringe tree, meadowsweet,
morning glory in the hay.

In idle August, she hauls her belly
to the store for a Co-Cola.
The streets under her soles are
soft and hot as pudding.
The heat puddling the blacktop

looks so wet she could mop it up
and wring it into a cup,
but she sees it rise and shimmy
like her one silk blouse on the line.
She faints on Goolsby Street.

Night. He sleeps. Aroused
by heat and thunder, she
fingers the gouge in his cheek
from a knife fight over dice.
She runs her hand over his thighs,

caressing the old wound puckered
by a nail in a loose board.
To him, she’s already Mama.
He’s Daddy to her. She sighs,
My man, all mine.

He turns on his side. His arm rises
like a flag. The hand above her
hovers for hours as he sleeps.
The first week she hardly slept,
afraid of sudden collapse.

Always done it, he swears. But now,
she fears no blow or punch
from his hand that’s clenched
as if it holds dice and cocked
as if about to roll craps.

 

 

 

 

Stan Absher