I write you because I do not understand myself. – Clarice Lispector
elin o’Hara slavick
I used to think if I leapt over a wide enough ditch
a man would fall out like a long stone,
or if I just collected enough heat
to burn him out,
my womb would no longer be wandering,
no longer hysterically his.
I do not understand the scar on my breast
Doctor Hunt pulled out like a lump of sugar.
The lump was nothing. The lump was just a lump
and this scar is just a scar.
The only other scars I have are on my eyebrow
from chasing my sister around the stairs
and running my head into a door
and on my elbow from pushing my arm through glass.
I was in a hurry to go outside. I was six years old
and had eaten a plum my father had told me not to eat.
He knew that fruit would change the color of my hair
to wine, stain my teeth, make me pregnant.
I have never been pregnant.
I have always spit out the seeds -
not between my legs but between my tongue and lips
like words, an unwritten sentence.
I am not confessing. This is not a refusal.
I am remembering my sisters.
I am having a hard time naming them,
the tree climbers, the witnesses, those I remember.
Each one an innocent rib of mine,
of honest and frightened bone.
This is my confusing embrace,
my bitter home.
elin o’Hara slavick
I used to think if I leapt over a wide enough ditch
a man would fall out like a long stone,
or if I just collected enough heat
to burn him out,
my womb would no longer be wandering,
no longer hysterically his.
I do not understand the scar on my breast
Doctor Hunt pulled out like a lump of sugar.
The lump was nothing. The lump was just a lump
and this scar is just a scar.
The only other scars I have are on my eyebrow
from chasing my sister around the stairs
and running my head into a door
and on my elbow from pushing my arm through glass.
I was in a hurry to go outside. I was six years old
and had eaten a plum my father had told me not to eat.
He knew that fruit would change the color of my hair
to wine, stain my teeth, make me pregnant.
I have never been pregnant.
I have always spit out the seeds -
not between my legs but between my tongue and lips
like words, an unwritten sentence.
I am not confessing. This is not a refusal.
I am remembering my sisters.
I am having a hard time naming them,
the tree climbers, the witnesses, those I remember.
Each one an innocent rib of mine,
of honest and frightened bone.
This is my confusing embrace,
my bitter home.