Jeffrey Howard
Heirloom Baby
Reluctant to rely on mere medical wisdom,
you consult the internet about your stewing
prune. Every Monday your searching eye
garners messages to warm your mind:
“Your baby is now the size of a kumquat.”
For days the thought cinches
your puckered lips almost conical.
Dimensions–yours and its–stretch and drop.
Sour citrus becomes pepper, avocado,
purple onion and tears,
the deep of your womb a bowl
to toss these freshest of ingredients.
Your first three children sprouted
as sweet vanilla pods and lavender,
(Oh, breathe them in!), soon evolved
into sugar snaps and stout gourds.
But when handprints of garden clay
coat bathroom walls, a quaking in your lips
suggests those little lima beans
have crept into the casserole dish.
Now the melon in your stomach delivers
its sweet ripening. Soft lemon head,
immersed in syrup, and an opening near L4.
Self-accusation gnaws your mind
like a caterpillar’s jaw. Mercury in the sushi,
Monday’s prenatals still in the dispenser.
Even Shirley Temple knew
ya gotta eat your baby spinach, baby.
Rejecting at last as fruitless the yield
of online searches, you consider
an heirloom tomato, love its wild lumps,
its warm and blushing skin cracked,
edges scabbed by the blessings
of the sun. Still, the sweet inheritance
in its red flesh, palatal promises,
aromatic burst, intact between your olive hands
as you cup it to your lips and breathe.
—♦—
