one for the cyst that

grew around &

took an ovary

a second for my beautiful

daughter

and then the third will be

for the stretched skin,

the legacy of a vast hole

I’ve finally begun to

fill properly

with love not food

with resilience not things

with gratitude and perhaps most importantly

with hope

 

trace these lines traversing

the softness of my belly

and you will

map a grown & re-grown woman

a garden with paths

a life of loss & gifts & passionate renewal

shall I put

the stone

down

 

I found it alongside

a river

of a mostly forgotten

dream

 

smooth

rounded

holding the heat

of a swallowed

moon

 

shall I put

the stone

down

 

if

it reminds me

of the girl I used to be

 

though I am still

warm and round

I will not carry that

same business with me

 

though I am still warm

and round

the script is changing

and perhaps I will devise

a new lexicon

 

one of growth

 

i do not wish nor want

for that hidden girl

to permeate the bubble of

now

 

as she was drowning

 

shall I put the stone down

and graft a tomorrow?

one of heavy-headed

daisies, black-eyed susans, honeysuckle, oleander and echinacea

 

one in which the scent

and color of this woman

is new, earthy, sweet and bright

not dark

nor murky

or carrying the silt of

self

analysis

and the resulting

rejection

(yes, that old business)

 

the river

the stone

the weight

 

the memory

the redacted

girl

who dreamed of a garden

but had no faith in her

ability to grow…

 

shall I put the stone

down

 

and open something new

gather leaves

and words

and petals

and color

and

scent and

rainwater and birdsong

 

shall I drop the stone and

imagine the roots of all this new growth

reaching and wrapping their cylindrical fingers

around it

burying it deep

in the loam

 

shall

I

put

the

stone

down

 

 

 

sometimes i want to curl up inside of him

want him to swallow me whole

no air, just him

sometimes i’m jealous of the sheet that wraps him in his sleep

the pillow on which he lies his sweet, heavy head

sometimes i wish i could spend my whole day

with him all over and around and inside me

never leave the dark, woven planet of our bed

sometimes my need for him is bigger than me

holds me in its hard-fingered grasp,

robs me of my breath

replaces instinct

asks a new language of this bliss-fill

this drowning emergence of love in a woman-shaped space