By Matt Mitchell
after Mark Cugini
it has come to my attention that middle school health classes forgot to mention how,
for many of us, it will take countless mouths of smoke just to make an offspring.
the government agent trapped in my webcam must be sighing as I google
hormone therapy withdrawal symptoms hereditary for the umpteenth time
in a waiting room, in-between systematic glances at the afternoon showing
of Judge Judy, or the child taking some crayola to the back wall, every so often.
I’ve been a labyrinth of wallpaper swatch and baby book anxiety
since high school. always hanging above me, a sequence of colors
soon-to-be in a nursery: blue and pink and then purple then yellow.
I am obsessed with the gyno’s ultrasound monitor and its neutral pixelated whiteness,
if for nothing but the solitary hope of being in this moment forever,
a singular chance at renting space in the beforehand of certainty,
not yet forced to accept the sureness of our baby boy’s forthcoming sex-chromosomal
coding that won’t quite match up with the other boys at his school.
yes, I am quite nervous and scared about this. but I am also happy. so glowingly happy
to put something on this earth before something I can’t control wipes me off of it.
Matt Mitchell is the author of The Neon Hollywood Cowboy (Big Lucks, 2021) and Grown Ocean (word west, 2021). He tweets @matt_mitchell48.