Prompt: In honor of the always-becoming nature of poetry, I challenge you today to select a photograph from the perpetually disconcerting @SpaceLiminalBot, and write a poem inspired by one of these odd, in-transition spaces. Will you pick the empty mall food court? The vending machine near the back entrance to the high school gym? The swimming pool at what seems to be M.C. Escher’s alpine retreat? No matter what neglected or eerie space you choose, I hope its oddness tugs at the place in your mind and heart where poems are made.
I did scroll through the images on the LiminalBot, and kept coming back to this one, for whatever reason. The resulting poem went in a direction I didn't intend for it to go, on a subject that I didn't intend to broach, but perhaps it's a necessary catharsis on an ambivalence no one told me I would feel before surgery.
DAY 4: THE UNNAMED
I can’t see it but I feel it - this invader, this foreign body within
Blooming like a leech’s mouth, large enough to require excision.
The nurse’s words flow past my ears, a stream of syllables joined
Dot-to-dot - at your age, no children any time soon, hysterectomy
Reasonable solution, solve your pain -
I am a gas station in the middle of no-man’s-land
The faceless daughters I will never have
Standing attendant at the pumps.
I am sorry.
My mouth forms the shape of words that melt
Like wax babies under hot sun and trickle
Down my throat, hardening, stopping the sounds
Before they can be uttered.
I wanted to teach you to be warriors
To be everything the world tells you
A woman can’t be.
Eyeless they stare at me
Faces blank holes like paper-doll cutouts.
I can’t see it but I feel it - this invader, this foreign body within
Blooming like a leech’s mouth, large enough to require excision.
The nurse’s words flow past my ears, a stream of syllables joined
Dot-to-dot - at your age, no children any time soon, hysterectomy
Reasonable solution, solve your pain -
I am a gas station in the middle of no-man’s-land
The faceless daughters I will never have
Standing attendant at the pumps.
I am sorry.
My mouth forms the shape of words that melt
Like wax babies under hot sun and trickle
Down my throat, hardening, stopping the sounds
Before they can be uttered.
I wanted to teach you to be warriors
To be everything the world tells you
A woman can’t be.
Eyeless they stare at me
Faces blank holes like paper-doll cutouts.
My pen scrawls a signature on the consent form.
I am sorry, my daughters.
One letter at a time, they begin to bleed away
Until all that is left are stains shaped
Like falling stars.
10 comments:
"Blooming like a leech's mouth" - what a shocking, beautiful image. The poem perfectly matches the hazy, threatening mood of the image. Very interesting how we went in somewhat similar directions on very different images today.
In fact you have given them life. Spirit does not always need flesh and bone.
"I am a gas station in the middle of no-man’s-land
The faceless daughters I will never have
Standing attendant at the pumps."
Reading this gutted. xo
I'd like to highlight these lines:
I am sorry.
My mouth forms the shape of words that melt
Like wax babies under hot sun and trickle
Down my throat, hardening, stopping the sounds
Before they can be uttered.
Choking from not crying, that's what the image evokes for me.
"words that melt
Like wax babies under hot sun and trickle
Down my throat"💜
I can totally see this--and feel it, too!
Each line in this poem is precious. I don't know if there's any I want to highlight specifically. Each word brought back images of the pain. You created magic through this poem and gave your 'unborn daughters' life.
Each line in this poem is precious. I don't know if there's any I want to highlight specifically. Each word brought back images of the pain. You created magic through this poem and gave your 'unborn daughters' life.
Each line in this poem is precious. I don't know if there's any I want to highlight specifically. Each word brought back images of the pain. You created magic through this poem and gave your 'unborn daughters' life.
Oh! This is brilliant and so moving. I want to make this into conversation and say your daughters are all the girls you will ever teach, who will ever look at you and listen to what you say. You will have more daughters than any woman would physically bear.
Ahhh!! So strong. Hugs and much love.
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