Don’t tell me you’ve never had an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch a baby
I want to stir up a young child’s fantasy right now so swell
up in my heart this overwrought emotion
to see a little Ivory or Avery running around
matching up Velcro smiley faces with his current disposition
and not have to call mother and home and tell her how naughty he’s been.
Hopefully she cares,
I sure would.

Baby Misha, I’d call her.
and we’d stroll down the banks of the river
the nearest river we’d stroll.
I love you so much
and not just because Nature forces me to.
Nature forces women to have babies
but I still want to
produce.

The ultimate work of art, I’d joke.
The penultimate prize,
my arrow I’d shoot out of my womb
and let it fly, unencumbered by my wants and wonts.
Ha ha, that’s so funny.
I’d nurture the hell right out of my child.
No phone! No i-phone! No phone until seventh grade.
But mama, she’d say.

But mama,
But mama,
But mama,
But what?
You are better off.
You’ll understand when you’re a mother,
and that’s me functioning with the assumption
that baby Misha wants to be a mother.
She’ll feel the same things I’ll feel because we have the same blood
maybe not the same blood type,
she may be positive, I may be negative
but one day we’ll dance like my mother and I danced
and I’ll cry like my mother cries and say
I’ll miss you but I want you to be free.

But mama.
But what?