Hysterical Pregnancy

Hysterical Pregnancy

A beggar woman
went to the house of a poor woman. The poor
woman gave the beggar
woman a little barley corn. The beggar
woman asked the poor
woman what she wanted and the poor
woman answered
that she would most like a little child to care for all of her own.

In days she felt the soft corners of her
belly stretching
as if a cube was growing inside her

No doctors could tell her why she heard static in
the milky spine of the night but she knew
like a mother knows

The television was plugged into her by its cord
transmitting and receiving
the sensation of fetal movements known as quickening

Her nipples darkened to almost black
against her skin, her legs cricked and buckled
and her face shone like butter

Her center of gravity began shifting
like how the round earth moves as a pendulous child but she
inched and scooted through her day like a soft block

She squeezed and smoothed the
varicose veins emerging from the four front corners like
plants laying roots

In months she shuddered out
a small television set
playing a black and white movie of a beggar woman
who comes to a house and leaves eating barley corn