Poetry: Nongestational by Jeni Prater

Constantly turning, this brief poem celebrates the fullness of desire between partners who are together in their disparate roles. “Nongestational” is a lesson in the power of each individual word to shape a poem, from the title to the final, solely punctuated “too.”


Nongestational

my body could

make a baby my body knows

 

what it wants shows your mouth unshy

under boxer briefs combing

 

through gristle to lush to mussel

to pearl I do not want anything

 

inside me still you tell me here

is where the world opens, too

 


Jeni Prater

Jeni Prater (she/they) is published or forthcoming in Apogee Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Hooligan Mag, Wax Poetry: 45 Poems of Protest, and elsewhere, and was awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize at Wellesley College. Their poems explore queer joy and nonbinary parenthood. She is an MFA candidate at Randolph College and was Accessibility Coordinator for Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam. Jeni lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with their wife.

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