BODY IMAGE Poem: Fruit of the Womb, by Caroline Hanna

At Four Weeks Your Baby is the Size of a Poppy Seed
It’s making me opioidic.
Scratching my skin dry
Craving, nesting, gathering.
Put me to sleep
In a field of petals.
A deadly red flower
Blooms from a deflowering.

At Five Weeks Your Baby is the Size of a Sesame Seed
On top of a hamburger bun.
A bun in the oven.
The dough rises.
I have grown another nervous system.
An extra set of nerves.
Double the anxiety,
And I can’t figure out why.

At Six Weeks Your Baby is the Size of Sweet Pea
Oh sweet pea, you darling.
I don’t want to eat your
Liver, or lungs, or heart.
I have seemed to misplace mine.
I can hear it beating
Deep and rhythmically
Inside of me.

At Seven Weeks Your Baby is the Size of a Blueberry
Which was the first thing to make me throw up.
Muck up purple sludge
Into the white porcelain toilet.
Harvested in late July.
Bruised in green.
Now starting to bud
And bloom into finger-shaped petals.

At Eight Weeks Your Baby is the Size of a Raspberry
You heart-shaped protector.
Give me some space, some air.
Something is breathing for me.
Taking the “Fresh Air” by Kenneth Koch
“Oh to be seventeen years old / Once again”
“But no, air! you must go… Ah, stay!”
I need you to stay
To put my oxygen mask on first.

At Nine Weeks Your Baby is the Size of a Grape
I cried in my grape-colored room
For days and days.
My eyelids are now just my eyelids,
Wet with tears.
Dried up and dry skin.
Grape to a raisin. Raisin to me.
Just me.