Poem to My Unborn Daughter: Conception
By Adrienne Banks

stark as gasoline,
I ready your father for you.
I rub my thighs like matchsticks
we strike. spark. sulfur.
daughter,

we conceive you
in the igneous peach.
pelvis threshes against sweetmeat,
the lava velvets, the granite folds,
a pomegranate seed burns, a ruby grows.
unlike the doctor alleged,
you refuse to clot or candy over.
a sudden syrup gush. a sudden sugar plume.
the buzzer. the rumfire.
the neighbors wince.

we bear such hot fruit
bees and bats from miles away
thrash at the windowpanes
lured by the frenzy.

— Adrienne Banks is a Kansas University student and host of “Ululations,” a poetry show on KJHK 90.7. Poet’s Showcase features work by area poets. Submit your poetry via e-mail with a subject line of Poet’s Showcase to mpaget@ljworld.com or send typewritten (not handwritten) submissions to Mindie Paget, 645 N.H., Lawrence 66044, attn: Poet’s Showcase. Teen writers should submit their work to the 18 & Under page at teens@ljworld.com.