Deadline

By Eve Lyons

It is spring
everyone is breeding:
Two co-workers,
the hawks in a building
on Fresh Pond Highway,
the geese in the Chestnut Hill reservoir,
and Phoebe, the hummingbird in California
everyone’s watching on the internet.
It seems everyone is breeding
except me.
When I was twelve
I played M.A.S.H.
tried to predict
the essential things in life:
Who I’d marry,
what kind of car I’d own,
what kind of house I’d live in,
where I’d live,
how many children I’d have.
I remember being so sure
I’d have kids
by the time I was twenty-eight,
I remember thinking twenty-eight
seemed so far away
so very old.
I’m nine years past
my expiration date
and counting.

First published in Contemporary World Poetry Journal, April 2011