Did Her Pregnancy Cause Cancer?
Poem Review: “If It Turns Out Pregnancy Causes Cancer” by Chelsea B. DesAutels
“If It Turns Out Pregnancy Causes Cancer” by Chelsea B. DesAutels is breathless. It begins with a lower case “it’s” and leaves off with the word “anytime,” sans end punctuation. As a reader, it feels as if we have accidentally stumbled into the endless chattering in the narrator’s mind, a continually running monologue.
“it’s almost too obvious to say the dualities of life can no longer be ignored”
What’s the poem about? Good question. The title hints at morbidity, at a final timeline. The poem talks about selling the stroller, no longer keeping hand-me-downs, about the narrator’s daughter. Who has cancer? The narrator? A missing child? What was being ignored? Her daughter is filling in the outlines of a picture of a dog. She questions how she’ll know when she’s done with the exercise. There are still spaces unfilled. If she fills in those spaces, if she fills them in permanently, then is she done? Her mother answers that the numbers come to an end, and she can stop anytime. So what is coming to an end? Or, perhaps a better question, who is coming to an end?
“what do I do next mama how do I make the animal complete what is still missing”
For such a straightforward title, we don’t get a sense of finality from the poem. There’s no final conclusion, no full stop. Once again, the impression that we’ve stumbled into the mother’s thoughts precludes us from coming to a tidy explanation. But do we really need one?
Check out the poem at the link below. Then let me know what you think. I’d love to hear a variety of voices talk about their interpretations of the poem. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
