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(First Trimester)
by Craig Santos Perez

[we] are watching a documentary about home
birth when [you] first feel [neni] kick // embryo
 
of hope // they say plastic is the perfect creation
because it never dies // litters the beaches
 
of o‘ahu, this “gathering place” // the doctor
recommends a c-section // in the sea, plastic multiplies
 
into smaller pieces, leaches estrogenic and toxic
chemicals // if [we] cut open the bellies of whales
 
and large fish, what fragments will [we] find, derived
from oil, absorbed into tissue // because plastic
 
never dissolves, every product ever made still exists,
somewhere, today // i wish my daughter was made
 
of plastic so that she will survive [our] wasteful
hands // so that she, too, will have a great future

"(First Trimester)," by Craig Santos Perez, from FROM UNINCORPORATED TERRITORY [GUMA'] by Craig Santos Perez, copyright © 2014 Craig Santos Perez. Used by permission of Omnidawn Press.