Jennifer Jackson Berry

Pantoum of What Not to Do

Don’t text me pictures of your kids.
Don’t ask me when we’ll try again.
Don’t tell me to use this as a
springboard for weight loss.
Boss, don’t assume the sick days
were a game.

Don’t ask me when we’ll try again.
Don’t cry when I tell you; let me be
the one to cry.
Boss, don’t assume the sick days
were a game.
I didn’t want doctors three times the week after Christmas.

Don’t cry when I tell you; let me be the one to cry.
Red & green is only red now, red for the blood in the toilet.
I didn’t want doctors three times the week after Christmas.
I don’t want to associate this with the holidays.

Red & green is only red now, red for the blood in the toilet
in the stall in the public restroom outside of the office. 
I don’t want to associate this with the holidays.
Boss, at least have the decency to say something, anything.

In the stall in the public restroom outside of the office,
I left clots & tissue.  I knew it would happen, just not like this.
Boss, at least have the decency to say something, anything,
as the medics wheel me out to the elevators.

I left clots & tissue.  I knew it would happen, just not like this.
The sheet wrapped around my naked lower half was spotted
as the medics wheeled me out to the elevators.
Don’t ask me if I had a good appointment.

The sheet wrapped around my naked lower half was spotted.
I soaked through pads in minutes.  Lamaze-style through cramps.
Don’t ask me if I had a good appointment
when we’re paying the co-pay at the ER check-out. 

I soaked through pads in minutes.  Lamaze-style through cramps.
I passed all of the tissue, so no D &C, but still this wasn’t a good day.
We’re paying the co-pay at the ER check-out.
See, told you, don’t.  Because I bet you didn’t want to hear my response:

I passed all of the tissue, so no D & C, but still this wasn’t a good day.
Don’t tell me to use this as springboard for weight loss.
See, told you, don’t.  Because I bet you didn’t want to hear my response.
And don’t text me pictures of your kids.

Jennifer Jackson Berry lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Stone Highway Review, 5AM, Main Street Rag, Jet Fuel Review, Amethyst Arsenic, and Mead, among others.  She is the author of the chapbooks When I Was a Girl (Sundress Publications, forthcoming in 2013) and Nothing But Candy (Liquid Paper Press, 2003).