The Greco-Roman Agenda

It’s no wonder I’m in such a bad mood:

there is a living thing inside of me—

a carnivorous, insatiable,

red and angry,

throbbing, sticky creature,

pacing around in my torso,

nipping at my liver and pawing my spleen.

It wakes me at night,

my wandering womb;

she’s restless and impatient,

ill-tempered like a snotty child.

Aretaeus tries to coax her to sleep

with myrrh and almond blossom.

It’s no wonder I’m hysterical,

with an unruly womb such as mine,

lapping up my blood and then spitting it out;

an animal within an animal.

It’s no wonder I laugh and cry and choke,

and call out soundlessly to a lost voice:

this womb is lodged in my throat,

bulging from the center of my neck

like an apple core.

The only way to keep it in place is

to fill it,

to weigh it down with life.

So, they fill us.

Again.

Again.

They pour, push, plunge themselves into us.

They are afraid of our wandering womb;

afraid of what it might do

if left for too long to its own devices,

of where it might go—

of what it might conquer.