Member Poem

Two inches numb

You would think that if someone

witnessed a body issue from your flesh

a being their own seed had set

that if they watched the knife score the living marble

if breathing fast under their hospital mask

they saw you cleaved in two

if sitting beside the green curtain erected over your chest

they peered into the rendered belly

if their arms held a person’s first attitude

not once but twice

that this someone would never leave

but like that surgeon and his team of medics

you never saw them again

were left with a strange wrenching sensation in your gut

nothing to anaesthetize the strain

a pair of scars faint as a double moonbow

all cords cut

all memories fading like a linea nigra

two lives to raise

two inches numb above your pubic bone

(First published in 'Hysteria 5', The Hysterectomy Association anthology, 2016.)