Fanta Babies
There are all sorts of breasts in the world
Girls wearing mud breasts
to induce the growth of their own
Silicone for the dissatisfied, the sorcerous
Hormones for the boys — soft twelve-year-old breasts
And in this one very poor country
Where there's lots of advertising
The mothers' breasts are filled with
an oxygenated orange fluid
And their children cry alot
And when they cry too much
The mothers take them skinny-legged
and glowing
To the hospital
Where the doctors take one
look at them
At their orange shit
And their fizzy little brains
And say
Ahh — FANTA BABIES!
BY MTC CRONIN
MTC Cronin has had six books of poetry published, the most recent being Talking to Neruda's Questions and Bestseller (both Vagabond Press, 2001). Another collection, My Lover's Back, is forthcoming in 2002 (UQP). She is currently working on a PhD, Poetry and Law: Discourses of the Social Heart, and has recently received an Established Writers New Work Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her books are available by contacting her at: <margie_cronin@hotmail.com> or ph: (02) 9550 2918.
From Green Left Weekly, December 5, 2001.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.