a poem written sometime during my undergraduate career…

Jennifer Lynn Brown, 18 and pregnant

If I were married I’d be a good wife
surrender my job and stay with the kids
such a sweet wife, so worthy of trust
until tired at last I’d slice open your back.

And when I stabbed you I’d use a steak knife,
having laid out my plans I’d be laid up myself
I would call the police and the medics and all
and greet them myself in your blood at our door.

The lawyers would come with a great many bids
to fight for film rights and their own careers.
In my sixth child’s sixth month the jury’s verdict would be
innocent by insane. Oh I’d act quite quite mad.

I’d then be locked up in a madhouse to rust
with every test tried and every test failed.
I’d bear there the child to be taken away,
to live with your mother who wanted me dead.

I’d be kept there for years, my mind lost on the rack
until no longer a threat they’d release me at last
and get me a job scrubbing stairs, washing johns.
I would, in the end, live alone.