Without child

Helen Moffett

“Haven’t you had your babies yet?” she said.
It was a baby shower (of course).
This as tea and cake were passed
(the cups were porcelain, and pretty).
“Haven’t you had your babies yet?”
As if I had left my shopping on the bus.

Sitting among a welter of objects
(the likes of which I will never own)
Barn-animal mobiles, breast pumps,
Someone’s aunt’s exquisite embroidery
And packs of disposable nappies,
I realise I am the only woman present (again)
With neither baby nor fecund bump.
The biblical words “with child” in my case mean
Without child always bloody always
Without.

“How old are you, anyway?” she said.
And lit a cigarette.
(Four pregnant women, five small children present.)
I answered by reading a poem out loud
(the only happy one Sylvia Plath ever wrote)
I am still answering with a poem.

LitNet: 08 August 2006

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