Gestation
When I became a gray-haired orphan
I fell pregnant with death
The white coat sonographer squeezed
cold gel onto my belly
but failed to capture the image
No generation stood between me
And the grey noise on the screen
Not Noah or Naamah
Nor their sons or wives
Not my mother
Not my father
They are gone
We will all labor
in pain and fear
or in an opiate fog
and deliver
Some with blind sockets
Some with eyes for the face of God
Rage Baby
The Christmas gift poinsettia
sat on the cement floor of the screen porch
Drooping red bracts
Never watered
Not even once
A plastic pot wrapped in silver foil
As she threw it away, my mother said,
“I don’t want one more thing to take care of
Four kids are four too many”
Mother grinned at the photo
of a crawling age baby
stuck with an elbow in the dog’s water dish
Eyes raged shiny with tears.
The face would be bright red, if it was shot in color
Teenage boy’s shins
pin skinny kid shoulders
The girl’s small feet kick the air
His fingers in her armpits
“Stop” stutters her laughter
Eyes raged, shiny with tears
He keeps tickling until wet darkens
the crotch of her jeans
first warm
Then cold in the air conditioned living room
Cousins on the couch
look up from their game of hearts
Amy Beth Sisson is sheltering in a small town outside of Philly. Her poem, Dissection appears in Issue 32 of Cleaver Magazine. Her fiction has appeared in Enchanted Conversation and Sweet Tree Review. Her non-fiction for children has appeared in Highlight’s High Five and Fun for Kidz magazines. Her day job is in software development. She tells programmers what business people want and tells business people why they can’t quite have it.