to the next

tried to toughen up

man up

tried not to be a woman

not defenseless

not fenced in

I drifted to keep from

nesting Flew around to keep

the chirping of ducklings and chicks

out of my ears

While my sister bore

babies for the man I call the Dodo

I was eating bread on a cliff

with a nearby hawk taking me in

I wonder every night

if the hawk thought I was

his sister

his lover

or just a freak who needs

to get back to her species business

In India they keep having children

girl children boy children

some die and some live

but the mothers are held there

Nesting While the fathers go out

to fan their feathers at younger birds

I will never be them

In china there are laws limiting children

incentives to keep them from being had

Yet so many men wishing to procreate

but so many daughters killed

minutes from the womb

I will never be them

I fall from womanhood

bypass manhood

and discover history

I never want to be post-modern

or primitive

or in between

How much I wish I was a daughter

born in China who died just moments

from the womb

Eboni Dunbar is a California native who has been writing almost as long as she has been bossing people around. As an undergraduate at Macalester college, she received her BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. She will start the second year of her MFA at Mills College in Fall 2010.