Today all the babies are angry.

The sun hurts their skin. It’s late summer,

and the way plants propagate seems

cleaner, how I can cut off a piece of pothos

and sometimes it sprouts another limb.

When it doesn’t, I put the cutting

in the garbage. But the baby needs food.

The baby needs music. The baby needs snowsuits

and a tiny bikini. It is as ugly as a worm,

writhing on the table, and all the time through love

we make each other into babies, we grow violent

with desire, and Britney is asking the baby

to hit her, and the Ronettes are singing be my baby,

and Justin Bieber is saying baby baby baby oh.  

And my mother is saying when I was your age

I was so anxious to have children. And I’m

picturing my fake French girlfriend, our life

together, a baby sitting up adultlike at the table.

Once, my young parents planted my placenta

under a plum tree.  The tree never bore fruit.

Sometimes I worry about my subconscious––

I dream I’m pregnant and making coffee

but the coffee pot is filled with dirt.

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