Her Eggs

by Tamara Madison

My daughter needs money

so she’s going to sell some eggs.

I think of her abdomen with its two

purses of ripening ova, each egg

bearing the DNA that we gave her.

Someday these small orbs

may become grandchildren,

but we won’t know them.

I want to cry out:

Hey, those are MY grandchildren!

Alas, they are her eggs, not mine.

Even so, she will be giving

those potential beings

our genes for blue eyes

and Rh negative blood,

a talent for music, a bent

for addiction. They may get

the Ojena chin, the Soulé wit,

the Gardner back,

but they won’t know any of this.

These new humans will not be

accidental products of an act

of passion; they will carry

our genes in anonymity

as they tread the earth, unaware

of their cousins and half-

siblings who will know these bits

of genetic history that they all

will pass down for as long

as humans inhabit the earth,

whether or not I can hold them,

sing to them, or kiss

their sweet young heads.

* * * * *

Tamara Madison is the author of the chapbook The Belly Remembers and two full-length volumes of poetry, Wild Domestic and Moraine, all published by Pearl Editions. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, Your Daily Poem, A Year of Being Here, Nerve Cowboy, the Writer’s Almanac, Sheila-Na-Gig, and many other publications. She has recently retired from teaching English and French in Los Angeles and is happy to finally get some sleep. More about Tamara can be found at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.