The following poem analogizes the developing fetus, embryo and baby to its corresponding fruit or vegetable. It elucidates various evolutionary milestones encountered from within the womb.
Baby Fruit
Conceiving of you, my Seedling. 
Has been a blessing
And an eye-opening journey
Through vapors of nausea and cream
We have become a team, Cookie. 
Navigating terrain
Unfamiliar yet pain
Full, my corpse encases fragility
Slowly unfolding into Rose.
Petals, your organs
Its your veins, its roots
spreading into the world from underneath
Concealed, you were once a Blueberry 
Whose neural tube formed
In conjunction with my awe
And eager flutters of discovery
Drawn into life’s inseam, 
My embryo Bean,
Your organ systems and limbs
Materialize into my future
Olive grove. Our little zatoun, 
Blanketed in green
Love etches incubated
By fractals of nerve-laden placenta,
You evolved into plump Fig. 
Whose facial features
Start to fractalize from molds
Of timeless parents’ personalities
Connected, beaded and sewn.
Into delightful edges,
Tapestries with corners
And cores that interminably quibble
My Lime- little lemon, you once
Were at a fork to
Becoming male; female you roared
In the casing of majestic tang, flare.
Bends, twists and bulges from within, 
Curvy sweet Peach—
Your eyebrows and lashes form
Fruity-sponge arcs now able to feel stress.
Robust prime Apple, you endure. 
Bone ossification.
Neck lifts, alongside bladder
Trickling urine—you hear my voice now
You can even suck your thumbs now. 
Soft Avocado—
Developing thicker skin and
Sculpting armor, core and facial expressions.
Red and fiery Pomegranate 
Your blood and fat gauge
Temperature, hot and cold,
As fingers grip umbilical chord
Juicy moisture-locking Mango,
Nutritiously framed
By vernix and lanugo,
Your sebaceous glands extend and engorge
Elongated Banana child 
With movements still mild,
Hemoglobin comes to swarm
Amid first green feces: meconium.
You are growing warmer inside. 
Ripening Eggplant
With spine and alveoli
Budding into fossilized human molds
Inextricably linked like Grapes. 
Whose vines sprawl into
Fingertips uniquely you
hiccupping, yawning, balanced and aware
Neural synapses grow acute— 
Cauliflower brain,
Retinas sharpen focus
As does recognition of who and where.
Cocooning into Coconut. 
Where kicks and stretches
Magnify from within shell
Streamlined with sulci and gyri brain folds
Almost four pounds and 31 weeks, 
Long thin Zucchini
Accumulates lean muscle
And fat to regulate your temperature
Outside the body; Pineapple, 
Textured and immune
Baby can fight infections,
And Absorb antibodies; skin smoothens
Papaya-big now, obstructed 
Kicks and somersaults
Baby is now suckling
In preparation for la vie outside.
Romain-Lettuce head flowering. 
Out toward the world,
Circulation, digestion
And immune systems well-equipped and strong
Spray gold halo from bunches of. 
Bushy Kale; she rolls,
Stretches, adjusts, bends and twists
Light weaves thinning uterus
As angels spearhead developing lungs.
Corpulent melon-Honeydew, 
Cantaloupe round—
Birth canal bound, baby eats
Amniotic fluid of vernix+ hair
Preparing a first poo, Pumpkin. 
You, with rosier
Hue—baby’s brain enlarges
By 30 percent amid fattened folds.
Watermelon womb expansive, 
Sitting up long hurts,
But I span, did stair master,
Weights and yoga up to your arrival]
Two days over 41 weeks. 
We let you strengthen,
Awaiting your conviction
to emerge solo, but no: Induction
I relished your final flutters— 
The bizarre symptoms
And restrictions blessing my year;
Sad to have to flow into letting go.
*
