When My Auntie Asks If I Think a Baby Will Make Things Better Between Us by Janice Lobo Sapigao

                                                  
                                                 I think about how 
we  made  our  most  important  decisions  with   our 
backs 
                   turned against each other in bed. When I 
needed the afternoon with you. When you
                                            asked if your father could
stay. When three a.m. came &   I wondered if I would
be there
     asleep in the privilege of slumber while my mom’s
cancer climbed through her body. 
   		                                   How you were scared
that we would never find a new place  to live after we 
outgrew our city. 

          How would we pay for the move if  the  money
didn’t come anchored in 
                     the talks about the classes  & your  new
job. & the one I passed up because I
				               wanted to  be  near  my
family. 

               Remember
when I		   took a flight to Los Angeles for a day 
& a half. After your dad’s heart surgery. We slept on a 
mat 	           on the floor & I wished we inherited ease.

       Remember
the 	           sheets you bought from the baby section 
of Target.  The canceled trip to Mexico  City.  When  I 
asked you to repeat after me when we met with the 
obstetrician. My belly full of questions.
       
                                                                           How 
the doctors always listened to you more in my own
appointments.         How you slept like a skyscraper
on your side that night.            So far away. How you
asked me to go to bed with
you 
      after I told you how the appointments made me 
miss my mom		                	& I  didn’t  know
	          ifIwantedtoanymore
&Iwasbeinghonest	        &noonefallsinlovetofallout

		        There was no baby & it didn’t make
anything worse than it was. There was no baby & 
					                                        I
made so much space. The baby we never had was the
straw that broke     the better never than late        the 
bridge right here. The clinic  I went  to  by  myself  on 
most days. 

                                      I just know I can’t turn 
                                      a baby into a wish. Or 
                                     our wishes into a baby.

Janice Lobo Sapigao is a Pinay poet and writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. She authored like a solid to a shadow (Nightboat Books, 2022) and microchips for millions (PAWA, Inc., 2016). She was the 2020-2021 Santa Clara County Poet Laureate. She’s working on a manuscript about Philippine archives.

12 October 2026