Tummy Tickles: A Poem

While I was carrying Lil' Cub, I worked as a high school English teacher, and every day my students would ask me what it felt like to be pregnant. I wrote the following poem in response to them and as part of a lesson on using figurative language to describe an experience:

First it feels like bubbles

That fizzle to the surface of a Coke

A tiny tickle, barely perceptible

A gentle little poke.

A mini whisper of a presence

That kept itself a secret

Before this certain moment

You’d never really noticed it.

And then it feels like hunger pangs

The churning, gurgling of your stomach

A tumbling, bumbling acrobat

That’s no longer a nugget.

Its pokes turn into taps and jabs

A symphony of drums

And then you feel the arms and legs

And oh, was that a thumb???

At 34 weeks, it’s a watermelon

Or maybe a basketball

Weighing 4.8, it’s run out of space

And pushing against the walls.

It punches hard my pelvis bone

And nudges against my ribs

Soon my house’ll be filled with cries

And bottles and baby bibs!

#pregnancy #poetry