
EMILY SHEARER

Profiles; Our Bodies Were Universes
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?