Everything has been remodeled
about motherhood. I should know,
I am not one. A mother, that is.
I have one, like we all do, or did,
at the time I tried to become one,
faced with a footlong hysteroscope, kin
to a medieval torture instrument.
In the waiting room, my poet friend
cracked jokes about the depressing
décor because what else could he do?
He drove me there as a favor and
afterward we stopped at a Polish
diner in a flimsy building. The server
was kind, brought free Cubs cupcakes
because we looked so goddamn sad.
This was back when nearly everyone
we most loved was dead or dying or
had left us or could never be
born, but there in the small diner
we had thick icing and like good friends
had split one chocolate and one vanilla
and would never talk about this day again.