Oh you can barely hear it when you're twenty
but when you're thirty it's plenty louder
your mother warned you but no
you had to doubt her
"I've got plenty of time, mom"

Oh, the ticking echoes in that empty womb
oh, from the next apartment
did you hear that 'boom'
her biological time bomb

Now every time you see a baby carriage
you curse the years you have avoided marriage
you are angry, you are confused
but wait
'cause I have figured out how to defuse
the biological time bomb

First you have a dozen of your eggs aspirated
frozen in the freezer of a doctor's 'fridgerator
in ten or twenty or thirty years, whenever you wish
you thaw them out to romance wigglies in a petri dish
then plant the little goober in a girl of seventeen
who's into natural living and Prevention magazine
No fuss! No muss! No stretch marks!
(well, not on you)
maternal instincts satisfied
the modern thing to do

Listen girls...
you can't ignore that ticking any longer
as you grow older it will grow stronger
biological time bomb

© 1985 by Christine Lavin