by Elizabeth Upshur
in the future, children will germinate
in manmade wombs. of course,
by the future I mean now.
I can have a child grown in a blue
glass womb, emerging from
a bead of water like Mami Wata—
split-tailed and serpent-skinned,
and I will have done my part in parturition.
my mother will have a granddaughter.
I trace the womb at night;
it is exactly one degree warmer
than my palms. I feel
like a witch when my nails scrape
the crystal ball, the luminous
red and purple eddy of spirits
tempting itself to transform
into flesh and blood. I divine her
perfect bones. when she is born,
there is no pain, no smacking, no shrieking—
she speaks in perfect sentences,
but they are not a language we recognize
ELIZABETH UPSHUR is a Black Southern writer and Associate Poetry Editor for Okay Donkey Mag. She earned her MFA from Western Kentucky University and recently won the inaugural Brown Sugar Lit Magazine prize. Her writing can be found in Colorism Healing Anthology, Pomona Valley Review, and Red Mud Review.
Glass Womb can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 3.2.
