I really want a beer

So today I'm exactly six months along. Yay! Only four more months to go until I can drink a beer again! I never realized how much I liked the taste of beer until I couldn't have it. It's like the forbidden fruit! My doctor did say it would be okay to have a glass of wine every now and then, and I assume that would apply to a beer, but I think all the fear-mongering literature I received in high school and read on the back of bathroom stall doors about fetal alcohol syndrome is preventing me from cracking that much desired can. It's okay.. I wrote some poems to keep me busy and push the cravings away.

Here's my latest draft (surprise! it's about babies!!):

Holding your breath

Your baby, a fetus wrapped

in the translucent amniotic sac

much like the swaddling cloth

pin-striped or dotted, either will do

gifted by your mother in law

around eight weeks but still too soon

tiny, curled fingers plunge

into your stretching rib bone,

probe, pull, pinch and pluck

her flimsy foot flings out

at impossible obtuse angles

testing and prodding

exploring every curve you hide

under billowy blue blouses you

swore you’d never wear

even though you cry out

or reach for the crumpled

heating pad attached to the wall

a smile still etches your face

an umbilical cord tangles

firmly attached to its lifeline 


If you have an feedback, I'd love to hear it. I've still got some tinkering to do, but I think the skeleton of this poem is pretty solid.