Fecund
Last night, you were making gnocchi. They glistened
like plump pallid lips, thick and chewy, but as I stared
I saw vulvas, wet and waiting, simmering and slick.
I am too fertile. I am the alluvial plain, seasonal
snowmelt swelling river, gushing forth onto my soil,
rich and silty. I am riparian, alive with wildness.
Full, nourished, and nested, I dreamt I was pregnant,
going into labor. I remember, in dream, finding stains
in my panties. Had my water broken?
I am a fallow field. I am uncultivated, returning
to my natural state. With each passing season unseeded,
my earthy loam aches with want, reach into me, roots.
I awoke to familiar twinges of aching womb.
My longing brain, unconscious and free,
felt emptiness but dreamt of fullness.
I am jealous of running river. When he is heavy,
laden with rain, he only flows faster. But I, too,
am serpentine. I, too, molt and discard what I outgrow.
Today, I do not bleed. Instead, the ripe fruit inside me
leaks nectar, viscous and syrupy, libidinous labial
libation. The lower, primal urges threaten mutiny.
I am a brain encased in sinew and flesh, strange
to be at war with the animal self. Where in the gray
matter is ferine instinct tamed into domesticity?
Show me where, use your finger, show me from the inside.
No, not with your finger—
Cover image: river taken by writer.