Home » The Oil-Child

by Carla Thomas

She names it "Moon Among Clouds,"
Covers it with canvas and translucent blues:
Her firstborn, brought forth in a frenzy.

        He calls it salacious, a bastard child,
        And drinks his morning coffee
        Without cream.

She watches the sun from the kitchen window
As it breaks blue sky-waters
And sends red streaks of afterbirth to day.

        He says, ''Pull the blinds;
        That light is killing my eyes." Then,
        "This affair of yours-when will it end?

        "Ah, yes," he smiles at her guilty trepidation,
        "I've seen aborted efforts
        Lying in trash cans, bathed in color."

Then she knows that he will never see
An artogenic progeny,
He, with his monochromic chromosomes
And his four-line business telephone.

Oh, to shock him with the news:
"I'm pregnant again-no thanks to you.
My muse is a potent lover."

        But already he's absorbed
        In this morning's stories
        Of oppression in the far countries
        And the possibility of replacing children with clones.