Rachel Dacus

Blood-Cycle Brooding One more unpeeling of the womb, close enough to the final time that I can relish the tiny tearings, the way muscles unclasp from what might have been -- One more the shredding of a bed that waited fruitless seven times seven years for an egg and dart to decorate its aching lap. Once more a blood-gravity descends, until I am a planet spinning everything into centripetal stop. The dropping-down cramp mimicking birth-pang. With mouth open delivering a new poem, breath heaving and rasping. And what do I have left from all those empty moon-circles? Scraped squeaky clean, the blood-room has birthed generative words. They sleep twitching in their cradles or sun themselves nude on public rocks. Tribe after diatribe of oaths and chants spilled from lips too like another portal that disgorges new bodies. Yes, in this blood-tide of verbs I was myself being brought forth, sieved through a mirror, witched awake out of the pounding dark.

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