Unnatural Selection

On the Internet they are auctioning off

the ovarian eggs of models.

Some are asking $50,000.

One woman is asking $150,000.

Women have 200,000 eggs at birth.

                      I looked it up.

That means their ovaries could be worth

two billion dollars at $10,000 an egg.

It boggles the body.

   The female canary’s eggs

are stimulated by song.

I’m concerned for the future

of human breeding.

There is truly not enough singing

over the petri dishes.

        One of the models

selling her eggs on the Internet

plays the part of the dead body

during the credits

of the TV drama Homicide.

The man who put up the Web site

to auction the model’s eggs says:

I’m not trying to do a white

              supremacist thing.

I picture sperm wearing tiny hoods.

I know at least he’s a male supremacist—

An in vitro fertilization pimp.

Why don’t they gather the eggs

of poets, of biologists, of physicists,

of concert pianists?

Maybe we’re too busy raising

             Playmates of the Month.

           Maybe we’re too busy

naming our daughters Misty.

   For the canary one

   special melody triggers

   the pituitary gland

   to release the hormones

that start the female breeding.

The man who is hoping to sell

$2 million worth of eggs this year

says, “Genetically modified eggs

will be the story of the next decade.

This is where the action is.”

          I think they said that about disco

in the ’70s. Suddenly I imagine

eggs dressed in pointy collars and platform

shoes, spinning around to Stayin’ Alive.

We can’t seem to get away from

reducing women to egg-vending machines

            in the DNA supermarket.

We come with our shopping lists

for cheekbones and eye color and breast size.

How close to birth and death

          we really are.

I think of the model who plays

       the dead body on TV.

                        We need to be

provided with Grief Counselors

  I think of the people with

the beautiful eggs and the beautiful

sperm—creating plastic dolls

in a petri dish. Unnatural selection.

   The female canary’s

   ovary will ripen

   and the eggs develop faster

   the more the male canary

sings to her.