Eggs

My womb is dead
and, with it, all the full-figured dreams
that lit my adolescence like Las Vegas signs,
shouting, "This way
to happiness!"

There was never any treasure to be found
beneath the spot marked X;
there was never a mirror,
never a lover,
never even a friend.

The prayers I whispered to Hebe,
she spun into a cotton candy cherub,
and I petted it
until it melted
and hardened and grew small.

This is a blessing to thank
God for. Now I can never
be tempted to plant seeds in the darkness,
where they will struggle and suffocate
and die, blighted.

But I wonder about the ones I wasted,
wrapped up in paper and neatly threw away.
These round half-people--
were their eyes brown-flecked like mine?
were they right-handed? would even one of them have not been

full up with desperation, choking on its mother's
despair?