26, and my eggs are screaming at me
again, not the ones in the frying

pan, the cracks of shell stuck
in the yolks, but the ones in my ovaries veiled

inside, that I’m not supposed to talk about over
breakfast. I’m not supposed to put the phrase I want

a baby on Tinder, not unlike the way
I’m not supposed to talk about church, growing up

wagging my tongue in strange
sounds, how sometimes in the dark

I still try to hear if that mouth works.
They groomed me

to be a preacher’s wife, leather Bible
and concordance ready, ass grown

stiff from wooden pews. They taught
me piano, taught me to cook, told me

not to go to college. It ruins young people,
the pastor’s voice rising from the pulpit, fist

slamming on the wood with each word.
My sin was that I went anyway, letting other books fall

on my lap like a lover’s head, raking
their scalps. But it hasn’t quieted the voices of my not yet

born. Sometimes I feel like Sarah,
tugging

on Abraham in bed, hoping he’ll look at me,
give me knowledge

how he used to kiss off my nightgown, pull
it over my head, breasts still small

but aching to thicken
with milk, square-hipped, hair speckled in grey.

Maybe naked we’d talk about Isaac
with our bodies, a conversation

he’d never have clothed. But no Abraham is
in my bed tonight to plead, and I’m wishing

I could be more like Delilah, steal strength.
But I only fool

myself, let the eggs burn hard, the air
smelling of singed cut hair.