BABY ON BOARD

those BABY ON BOARD badges
worn by pregnant women
when swaying around
on London's buses and Underground trains:
it feels like they're a good idea, conceived (pun intended)
with noble intentions
and high hopes
about the decency
of the travelling public.

but see what so often happens
and think again.
see the able-bodied
suits and brogues and cufflinks
acquire, suddenly,
a selective myopia.
and see them stare,
more intently than before,
at the bright little screens
in their laps and palms, never connecting
the dots between the unborn child slung
uncomfortably out in front of the living person stood inches away
(from the spreadsheet, the Twitter feed, or the game
of solitaire)
and the children spawned
from the loins
inside their own trousers. 

maybe it's more understandable
in someone who's not (yet) had kids
of their own.
think of that scene
in The Office
when that (admittedly creepily irritating) woman objects
to the plumes of cigarette smoke emanating from the nasty mouth
of that horrible sod from the warehouse... and he says
she's not special just because she let
some useless tosser blow his beans up her muff.
but look, even if you haven't had children and
even if you're one of those people who goes on about
how you're never going to have children, and
even if you're one of those people who goes on about
how it's other people's choice to have children and
how you don't see why you should have to listen
to someone else's fucking brats making noise
in a restaurant,
or how you don't see why you should stand up for some bird
just because SHE'S DECIDED to have a baby:
well,
let me put it this way:
one day you're going to be old,
infirm,
incontinent,
and confused.
and
when that time comes
and you've had no children,
or the children you've had think you're a mean-spirited arse...
then you'd better hope that enough fucking brats have been born
in the time it's taken you to become
a desiccated husk.
because if new humans
are in short supply
then who's going to wipe your backside
and listen to your peevish bullshit?