Week 16, Freewrite 2

The Egyptians used crocodile dung
as birth control two thousand years before
Jesus. I was afraid my IUD would set off
airport security, as I inched between
metal detectors and tasers. My doctor told me,
in the Stone Age, women shoved pebbles
to keep from getting pregnant. But what’s one
more mouth when you’re a scavenger? It’s
nothing like being some child-slave
in Africa, wading through marsh to hunt
for piles of dung, rolling it between fingers
test for freshness, for impurities. Nothing
like juggling agendas and asps, exams
and trials. Nothing like my grandmother,
who in the fifties, used Lysol to purify
and preserve, to secure her husband.