TIME TO MAKE THE BABY

I keep hearing about
falling birthrates
& some breakdowns
in the traditional American family algorithm -

scientists gather statistics,
1.8 children per couple,
that number has them
weeping nostalgically for the baby boom –

there are more reasons that newborns –
            the growing economic independence of women,
            many people forgoing marriage,
            or spending less time in its clutches
            if they do –

plus there’s the rising costs
of maintaining the little brats
in the style to which life is accustomed –

            plus all those fancy birth-control methods
            from a condom in every purse
            morning-after pills,
            abortion, lower fertility –

we need the people,
the government tells me,
for our economic well-being,
military strength –

            brains trusts speculate            
            could test tubes do the job,
            secret government labs
            out of Aldous Huxley,
            well-paid mommas artificially inseminated,
            embryo implants,
            & all these abandoned factories
            converted into children’s barracks –

so the family,
that dysfunctional brigade of bitterly close relations,
is no longer up to the task,
but we have a government
raised on reducing foreign villages to rubble,
able to raise American villages
out of a different kind of rubble –

meanwhile,
I say could we, should we,
as we slip out of our clothes,
just in case we’re still needed.


John Grey