It’s been over five years since my body
shed its little uterine suit into the thin
sling of my cotton underwear,
this interlude due to you, small
hormonal hummingbird, hovering
above my cervix, preventing me
from holding more than I am
ready to. I remember the white shock
of pain when you touched some deep
part of me, the sudden nausea, sweat
jumping like hot oil to my skin’s surface.
Three times I’ve lain on this table, waiting
to become a perch for your tiny talons.
Is it wrong that I sometimes miss
the rush of blood upon sitting up in bed,
the sideways waddle to the bathroom?
It’s not that I enjoyed being an open
wound or aching across each hour,
just that my body was intelligible to me,
a language whose syntax I understood.
Now my uterus is mute, home to an animal
I am indebted to, and when it hurts me,
I am expected to say thank you.