By Roger Cornish
She lay in her damp cavern. No
Throne or gowns. The workers had
Stripped her of her wings.
She is filled with enough sperm
To lock her in this birth-cycle
For forty years.
Knocking out those pure white
Ovum—not jewels, just
Drones.
She is just another worker.
It’s the nurse workers that
Rule the day. The
The inspectors,
The Gestapo,
The Bureaucrats,
Starving the babies of nourishment,
Restraining them like chained slaves
In a queue a million miles long.
Me mam lived in a back-to-back, one of a
Hundred. She lost her wings early; they
Amputated them. It was like a circumcision,
Blood everywhere.
Pregnant for seven years. One
Died, and they crammed it in a jar,
Put it on a shelf as a testimony
To the others—all grey and
Wrinkled.
Her offspring went to local schools
And off to factories:
Portland Shoes, Corah’s Hosiery.
There was no royal jelly or Eton.
There are no Queens.
There are no Queens.
