I am dubious about writing poetry. It’s very difficult to get right and far to easy to get wrong, I always think. But despite this, and although I have never considered myself to be a poet or aspired to be one, I keep finding myself trying to write poetry. What’s that about, I wonder?

Anyway, with the coming of the frost recently I’ve found myself thinking about last winter when I was heavily pregnant with my now nine-month-old third-born son. I remembered that I wrote a poem trying to capture the vast uncomfortableness of my condition. So last night I found it and read it again. I grimaced. Then I tweeked it a bit and grimaced some more. Then I rewrote bits of it, grimaced, tweeked, re-wrote… and then lost all perspective.

So I thought instead of filing it away (which I am massively tempted to do) I would post it here. There’s not much point writing things if I just squirrel them away. So, without further ado, here is my slightly silly poem about late pregnancy.

 

Eight Months

I have a huge and heavy

Robust and wriggling belly.

I am anticipatory and trepidatory,

While waiting I grow weighty;

My swollen tummy ever growing,

My once-slim figure ever going,

Expanding skin now stretched so taut,

And oh, the expensive creams I’ve bought

To halt the marks and stop the itching

That heavy pregnancy’s inflicting.

 

And it’s not just that: my feet are fat.

I can’t sleep on my front or back,

In fact, I cannot sleep at all

Without a massive pillow wall

That wraps around my front and rear;

My poor old husband can’t get near!

 

And then there’s matters of the table;

Although I eat all I am able,

Dining’s losing its appeal

As I can’t have a single meal

Without a painful gas affliction

Gaviscon’s my new addiction.

 

Then when I have to go outside

I feel like someone twice as wide

And lumber slowly down the street

With painful hips and back and feet

And even this small animation

Gives me bouts of palpitations.

 

It’s been a tiring pregnancy

But soon I’ll be a mum of three

And won’t be whinging half as much

When there’s nothing in me but my guts!

 

I’m linking this up with Prose for Thought over at Verily Victoria Vocalises.