Kathryn Jacobs
Proceed With Caution: Birth Canal Ahead
And that reminds me: what of warning signs
for unborn babies? You know: “Birth Canal!
Proceed With Caution, Slippery When Wet:
Continued Tremors Likely.” Might delay
a lot of births, and mothers might object.
But birth’s traumatic, and they ought to know
the rules — like, there’s No Parking past this point.
And “Don’t Disrupt the Peace” — they’re bad at that.
No Dress Code though: it’s “Clothing Optional.”
We might release a Storm Advisory:
“stay home, stay safe, stay warm, stay off the road” —
all relevant to babies yet unborn.
This world presents an “Existential Threat”
And there’s No U-turn. Birth? Don’t Mess with it....
Kathryn Jacobs is a medievalist turned poet from Harvard University. A book of her poetry,
In Transit, has been accepted by David Roberts Books, and will appear in 2011. She also has two chapbooks: Advice Column (from Finishing Line Press) in 2008, and Signs of Our Time (from Pudding House Press) in 2009. She has published over a hundred poems in a wide variety of journals and (in her prior life) a book on medieval marriage contracts, plus sixteen articles.
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