The Spitting Image
by Nevada Kerr

In the hated migrant towns
On the threshold of rebirth
Barren vassals between jobs
Take root and bloom in the desert

Surrogates and germ-free gals
Hired lovers with spongy gels
Count on embryo-stained pastels
To resketch their sketchy inner selves

Everything is safe and clean
Sucklings stir up unborn needs
Mother machines record their dreams
And donate fertile eggs and seeds

Refugees with a brood to breed
Volunteer their beating hearts
They mount barbed wire fences
And sun blistered body marts
Slash and gash the hybrid world
For inner city infant parts

They spawn in cars and cherished bars
Despite their prophylactic scars
And edible portions of implant distortions
Pay for their divorcee abortions

Convert a tainted virgin or a diluted agitator
Place some protoplasm in a mutant incubator
When the wombless fetus quickens
And the clotting blood unthickens
Lovers newly stricken
Will dance like headless chickens

Written by Nevada Kerr
17th March 2002.