Two And Two: Selected and New Poems

Embarazar

Embarazar The Dairy Association’s huge success with the campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention that the Spanish translation read, “Are you lactating?” This worries me because I am in Spain and my period is over a week late. Café con leche descafienado con sacarina, por favor. You’re not supposed to have swordfish when you’re pregnant, so I order it. My body refuses to give me a hint. I feel no premenstrual bloating, no breast swelling, no backache. I feel no morning sickness, no cravings. I feel my stomach for signs of a heartbeat. I imagine my breasts, spilling over with leche. When Parker marketed a ballpoint pen in South America, its ads were supposed to have read, “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” The company thought that the word “embarazar” (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!” I fear my husband’s pen has leaked into my pocket. I look at my calendar figuring out when I can schedule an abortion once we get home. I wonder if we should drive up to France, where I’m pretty sure I could find RU486, the French Abortion Pill, which, if it’s ever marketed in the United States, will be called Mifepristone. Or I wonder if we should keep the baby (who would come in January) and figure out a place to fit a crib in the apartment . Today we saw a Down’s syndrome girl on the bus biting her arm. I’ll be forty by the time the baby comes. Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,” was translated into Spanish as “it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate.” My husband has been aroused a lot lately, like Frank. We are on vacation, which makes me affectionate. I want to buy one of those little pregnancy test kits, but it is Sunday so all the farmacias are closed. My husband has always been careful about putting a cap on his pen, and I have always been diligent in making sure he does, but now I remember that one awful time that we were so in a hurry doing laundry that one of our Papermates turned a whole batch of whites blue. 62 ...