Laying Eggs

I was conceived a female in the DNA machine,
gestated in a nursery tank
filled with synthetic amniote.
After Vaccination, I joined the world,
nurtured by my foster mother,
barren, like the others,
like me (or so I thought)
by Government decree.
The choice to conceive, to birth
was forbidden to all but the Elite
dwelling high in light of day above the clouds.

Life changed when I was twelve --
the stab of rape,
the nightwatchman turned against me,
inside me
when I strayed from toiling on the foundry floor.
He soothed my bruise with money,
hushed my lips with promises
if I'd lie beneath him in the grime.

I grew sick, fraught with hunger pangs,
his essence grown within me.
Word spread of a Miracle,
an underclass born fertile from the tank;
Rebels arrived to hide me, to save
my unborn child from the Police.

I awoke beneath lights,
surrounded by women in masks.
They proclaimed me Elizabeth the Fertile
and stole the unborn fetus from my womb.
The masses enslaved, worshipped
me as a living Goddess.
Rogue doctors probed my belly,
tuned my body's clock,
impregnated me again,
the Right to Birth their call.

I've grown ten daughters in my womb,
all taken during sleep
without my mother's touch.
Like me, they live hidden
in the darkened bowels of buildings,
their bodies swollen in the Queen's Chamber,
laying eggs.

Scott Speck
11/23/99