EMILY SHEARER

Sometimes when I go to the Center, I comb my hair and gloss my lips,

line my eyes in cobalt blue.  In a satchel with my oils and candles,

I pack a couple Matchbox cars for the children, some protein bars, 

sample sizes of hotel lotions and body wash.  I like to bring them tokens.

They like to send me home with deeper things.

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♀︎♀︎♀︎

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Our Bodies Are Universes

 

 

There will always be the quiet birthing of foals,

blood and vernix-coated,

and some form of god who prizes newborn mess 

 

and mothers’ fragile needs. There will always be this din

of pot-slamming violence rending the seams 

of Sunday mornings, the cries of hungry bellies and empty prayers.

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Amidst a cacophony of church chimes and children

thrown out with the holy water, and goddammit woman where's my supper,

don't tell me it's morning again,

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there will always be women who want to help

bear poverty's babies, draw them forth from the celestial spheres

at the center of all of us.  When did we forget

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our wombs were universes, when did we stop

hearing the music of one single bell

against a breeze, one doe slipping out of the hunter’s sights?