Enter Rumor, Painted Full of Tongues

by Joe Mills

My daughter tells me Miley Cyrus is pregnant,
but she and her friends can’t agree if the father
is Jay-Z or Eminem.  It might not matter anyway
because Sarah thinks she’ll get a divortion.
I explain that it’s pronounced abortion,
and she asks how it’s done.  Is it just a shot? 
Because that’s what Trish has said.  Her cousin
has a friend who got one.  She said she got a shot,
and the baby just went away which is weird,
my daughter says, because she’s also heard
that you can get a shot to get pregnant. 
That’s what Grace’s step-mom did.  She got shot
in the leg, but you also can get shot in the butt,
and, you can even get two or three shots
if you want to have twins or triplets,
and there doesn’t even need to be a father
although she thinks Grace does have a dad
because she’s never heard anyone say she doesn’t
and that’s the kind of thing people talk about,
but what’s kind of scary, my daughter says
is that she knows drugs also mess a baby up,
not in a two-headed way or anything,
but in a six fingers, not born normal way,
and Miley Cyrus definitely does drugs,
more than Selena Gomez or Justin Bieber
who have been in rehab together, maybe
that’s even where they met.  No one knows
if it’s a boy or girl or if it has a name yet,
but, she tells me, we’ll probably find out soon
maybe tomorrow; it will be on Instagram
or the news and people will tell her at school
and she’ll let me know as soon as they do.