As the title implies, the speaker is an unborn child, praying from the womb with the plea that their prayer be heard. It is a plea made from fear; the prayer asks for protection against a number of threatening creatures both real and imagined: bats, rats, and ghouls included.
Fear continues to be the stimulus behind the prayer in the second stanza, but this prayer calls for protection against more abstract forms of monstrousness. Asking for consolation, the unborn child expresses its fears of the world that awaits its entry: that it will feature walls of imprisonment, drugs to anesthetize, tempting lies, and endless torture.
For the third time, the speaker reminds the reader that they have yet to be born and then issues a prayer for provisions of care: water, grass, trees, skies, birds, and a white light for guidance.
The speaker goes on to pray for forgiveness for the sins the world will force them to commit. The forgiveness they ask for applies to sinning through speech, thought, treason, and murder. The speaker then makes a request that the world help them rehearse for the parts they are bound to play. The performances they expect include scenarios in which beggars refuse the offering of a gift and a life where they are cursed by their own offspring. The speaker asks that "the man who is beast or thinks he is God" be kept away from them (26).
Next, the speaker prays for defense against efforts to deprive them of their humanity by turning them into a solider or robot. As the prayer continues, the speaker anxiously imagines that they will be turned from human to object, or will lose their autonomy to the point of becoming something blown in the wind or water spilled from a cup. As the poem concludes, the speaker asks that they not be made into a stone or spilled. Otherwise, the speaker entreats, they wish to be killed.
