Ode to My Fallow Uterus
What are you if not a shrunken head?
A God’s acre, atrophied of all
your bloated curves. My ram skull and horns.
Folklore says to bleed you is to keep
you hungry. That you’d wander from throat
to rib cage: an animal, lonely
inside the animal of my body.
And your foremothers? Fifteen babies
between the two of them, more to work
the rented farmland, more because—what else?
Tradition says I am unclean;
that spirits flock to the curse of your waste.
For some of my children you have been
a second skin, others have not been
so lucky, folded and shook out
in that red shroud. To shed, I’ve learned,
can mean to separate the lamb
from its mother. Still, I am trying
to be grateful. Cover your mouth—
you and I have made enough ghosts already.
A God’s acre, atrophied of all
your bloated curves. My ram skull and horns.
Folklore says to bleed you is to keep
you hungry. That you’d wander from throat
to rib cage: an animal, lonely
inside the animal of my body.
And your foremothers? Fifteen babies
between the two of them, more to work
the rented farmland, more because—what else?
Tradition says I am unclean;
that spirits flock to the curse of your waste.
For some of my children you have been
a second skin, others have not been
so lucky, folded and shook out
in that red shroud. To shed, I’ve learned,
can mean to separate the lamb
from its mother. Still, I am trying
to be grateful. Cover your mouth—
you and I have made enough ghosts already.
Terri Linn Davis has an MFA in poetry from Southern Connecticut State University where she also teaches first-year writing. She is the recipient of the Jack and Annie Smith Poets and Painters Award (2018). Her poems have most recently appeared in Janus Literary, Emerge Literary Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal, Belletrist, and Ghost City Review. She lives in Woodbridge, Connecticut with her co-habby and their three children. You can find her on Twitter @TerriLinnDavis.
Art: Red Cabbage, oil on paper, Paulina Swietliczko