Poems are eggs in my ovaries

They wait, inchoate,
for their turn to travel
to the oasis of uterus; there a poem
can be fertilized with the persistence of
one thought, one event.

Poems grow in the moist jungle, feed
on the floor of the lush vegetation of womb,
nurtured by the temperate climate.

Poems are pushed out into the world.
Sometimes they are premature
and suffer the lethargy of lungs,
fragmentary organs unable
to breathe on their own
Sometimes poems are healthy,
tap the maternal instinct,
bring joy to those who hold them close.
Sometimes poems are stillborn.

The most painful of poems
are those half-finished,
stuck in the birthing canal,
lodged in squeezing darkness.
These poems howl at me from the inside,
keep me awake at night with their muffled wailing.