Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. –1984
The goal was a new generation
of children trained as zealots & spies,
with no connection
but to the nation. The goal was
promulgation of an idea
& for this they would need fetuses,
an army of them. Of course,
they’d also need sterilization, plus
strategic starvation & bombings
for managing the Prole population.
But first & foremost, fetuses,
hence the Procreation Obligation.
No matter if women got wrung out
like washrags, losing teeth & hair.
No matter some would conceive
after rape & some could, or would
certainly, die. No matter some
might not want to be brood mares.
Duty was duty & the risks did not
much affect the men in charge.
The mission was procreation.
Birth control was immoral & you
had to choose between it & food.
Abortion was unthinkable then, seen
by Big Brother (Big Sister might
quibble) as abomination. Also, illegal,
a crime to get one, or help someone
get one, let alone—even to save
the mother’s life—perform one.
Like it is here, in some states, now.
Rebecca Foust’s books include YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR: Love Poems (Backbone Press 2024) and ONLY (Four Way Books 2022). Her poems won the 2024 James Dickey Prize and the Telluride Institute’s Fischer prize, and in recent years, the New Ohio Review, Pablo Neruda, James Hearst, and Poetry International prizes. She divides her time between Marin County, CA, and Minnesota.
