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!
