06 Jul Don’t Ask Me

In this world

Don’t ask me to be a man

For what I do, he cannot.

I carry the new.

An idea, a metaphor, a life.

My heart breaks, my muscles tear

my bones shift from their moorings

To hold this treasure

To bring this life to birth.

By Elli Johnson

Some poems arrive slowly in dribs and drabs, other arrive already fully formed. This poem was the latter kind. I wrote it a number of years ago and often re-share it for International Women’s Day. It plays with the idea of childbirth but is about much more than that.