The Monologue of a Surrogate Mother

This baby born today is not mine. Or is it?
This maternity is only for banknotes,
more of which I often get than I bargain for.

The feel of someone else’s fetus growing
tiny limbs over nauseating months
and the baby’s restless kicks inside my womb

are all over in a flash. In the hospital,
while trying to latch the baby on to my nipple,
I felt my tears as if asking for the green-light.

My clients say such sentiments don’t suit us;
they come like locusts year after year.
No, the locusts leave crops fully damaged

but they don’t. They rather leave me
a few more banknotes as a goodwill gesture.
And then the very next year I might have

to do it again, though a bit more hesitantly.
My life’s never been sweet like soan papdi.
My real kids wonder why my belly swells

like high-tide and subsides like water’s retreat;
they don’t know where their siblings go.
Their questions are breakers on the beach.

My husband, either lying face down
or sitting up with amputated legs over there,
is always afraid I might dump him one day.

I still relive the first sight of his bloodied legs
lying separate on the rail tracks. Whatever,
they just need food on the table. No,

not the table for this piece of furniture seems
a luxury even in my wild imagination.
Unlike a hooker, I never get up close

with my clients; so there’s no question
of wrapping my legs around them.
I lease my womb for their test-tube fetuses.

I am a queen of the womb. But last year
I was on the verge of being dead at childbirth;
fortunately, doctors didn’t let it happen,

not for my sake but for the baby I was
supposed to deliver to my rich client. No,
I still remain poor. Like a bitch giving birth

to puppies on busy street-corners?
No, I am more dignified than a bitch living
on leftovers. I am the human mother!

The only thing I get weirdly sad about
is that I never had the chance to be called
Mother by those babies I had given birth to.