(this is the poem that was due today from the last class meeting)
I prefer my eggs cooked over easy
Ambre drips, glossing pale legs and
I’m purging, inviting myself out
of my self, catching the particles of an empty
womb and cherishing the warmth,
the coppery scent of another month
free of small selves made of my skin.
I savor each second
that “blessings”
aren’t tearing my membranes, stretching my stomach,
robbing me of cells, sleep, cities, chardonnay.
Before cotton plugs me I look:
a puddle, the bright red making a
cocktail with toilet water.
May this holy flow never cease.
Why must bedroom rhythms beckon
the halving, breaking, splitting of my body?
Imps bludgeoning, bruising my walls?
Why am I expected to share this
sacred spacewith a stranger?
I like this a lot - it makes me uncomfortable but in a good way. I especially like the first three lines of the second stanza. In the first stanza, I wonder if you could find more specifc words - "amber" and "coppery" both don't seem to exactly fit the image you're describing.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great poem when it comes to language - visceral and simultaneously comforting in its intimacy. Would love to see the development of this narrator as she grows older, or changes in some significant way in another work. Will sleep, cities, and chardonnay remain more valuable to her than small selves made of her skin?
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