Jackalope-Girl Decides No Children

The women would smile their condescending smiles,
say trite things like You’ll see
as if after marriage, I’d change
my mind, suddenly desire
a swollen belly, distended
womb, a litter of monsters sucking
my chest. What would be next?
An apron. A fainting couch.
Powdered formula mixed with Jack Daniels
warm on a nurse’s wrist.
A generation of half-breed
girls, jaws aching, cheeks scorched
with shame when their classmates ask
about their whiskers, their antlers.
I said no and I mean it.
A husband, a garden, a job.
If those women keep waiting,
I’ll be here. Earthly. Skeletal
in the high exposure of aftermath,
the landscape around me trying
to make up for what’s lost.