Shopping Cart
    items

      ←

      March 13, 2023Wandering WombAyelet Amittay

      Ancient texts named
      hysteria the source
      of bodily ills. The womb
      an animal inside
      an animal. The littlest
      Irwin has been studying
      animals again,
      this time her own. Cells
      migrating from the uterus
      like a great flamingo flock
      through the tissues. Blood
      fattening the growth. The pain
      like a great cry,
      or singing. Let us speak
      of blood, of the wringing out
      of the lining that fed
      each one of us. Don’t you
      know how a woman
      pours herself
      like a jug of wine? I mean
      each of us
      an enchantress
      pulling ourselves through
      the sleeve of ourselves
      in our own birth.

      from Poets Respond

      Ayelet Amittay

      “I was moved by this article on Bindi Irwin’s struggle with endometriosis. As a nurse practitioner I work with many patients who have this condition, which is rendered invisible by society’s refusal to talk about periods and other ways women’s health affects us all. I wrote this poem as a testament to those patients, including Bindi Irwin.”

      →