Found in Willow Springs 90
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Liz Phair, fifteen weeks
On the same morning I learn
the fetus is developing folds that
will become ears I also hear
that Liz Phair has a new album
which makes me weepy because
special sentimentalities go along
with being pregnant and with being
a teenager and hearing her name now
converges these chapters, makes
me reminisce about being fifteen
and in the back of Webster Hall,
swaying because I was so uncomfortable
in my body and so taken
with excitement to be at my very
first concert beside a very
pretty friend whose taste in music
I let mold mine. Liz’s voice
has stayed the same but her heartache
hasn’t aged well. She sounds
less fierce, more codependent.
We were both supposed to stay
youthful forever. We were both
supposed to remain as cool
as we felt in the 90s. I listen
to the new album again to try
and like it better but it just
makes me want to hear
Exile in Guyville, and I belt out
the lyrics like the fetus
can hear, like it might forgive
me and Liz for the imperfect
ways we’ve aged.
Riddle, six weeks
Are you sure you want to switch
to pregnancy-tracking mode?
my period-tracking app asks and a purple
circle with a peanut-shaped image of an embryo
at the center stares up at me as I stand
in the white-walled laundry room
of my apartment building basement
where I have come to hide
from my partner who does not want
a pregnancy or a baby or a child
and to retrieve a load of wet washing
and in the process I’ve hit what now
appears to be a very significant button
whose pressing will activate an endless
stream of content warning women what
to eat and what not to eat and what skin
products to avoid and which to use and
on any given day, whether your embryo
is the size of a sesame seed or a lentil
and which exercises you should try
and which never and whatever you do,
don’t stress out, it’s bad for the baby,
but I don’t know that yet and in the moment
I’m not prepared because it’s Friday
and I’m between Zoom meetings and
it’s been only minutes since I removed
the pink wrapper on the First Response test
and peed into a glass jar that used to hold
a pine-scented candle but today
holds my yellow urine which apparently
contains the hormone that the test
says means positive which means
that today my body is pregnant and yet
my body is also over thirty-five and has
never, to my knowledge, carried a pregnancy
and there are too many emotions to process
all of which will conflict directly with those
of my baby-hating partner and so it seems
strange that the app whose job I thought
it was to simply track my menstrual cycle
should be so bold as to ask whether
I’m sure about anything
You’ve captured this experience so very well, with such immediacy. Thank you.
Loved this. I googled you to see if you did have a baby, and see that you also specialize in memoir and personal essay. The poem reeled me in wanting to know more. And now I know about your accomplishments and can read more of your work. Thanks.