Emily Bludworth de Barrios

The Woman Who Can No Longer

In the great book of childbirth,

women with              are placed beneath a shroud

The only women who precede them in dignity are angels, or ghosts:

those who                        or          or                           and so on and so forth

Next to them, standing at their shoulders, or a little in front, or a little behind, with faces like ice and night, are the women who                                                   I don't mean a face like night or ice, I mean a face like a vanishing or how dare you like     

                          The house has no need to even acknowledge your existence

                                      get away.      proceed without me don't include me

Behind them are the women whose                 were damaged in some way

Behind these are              I won't speak of     

Not mentioning “               ” or “                         ” or “            ” or “        ”

Next are the                                          The purple feelings lifted up and away behind a curtain and the suture 

The beautiful woman controls the forces of nature                 cells, the economy, and time (an insistent god who never disappears)

                         come next, along with those who slim down to lean forms in six weeks, those who “pushed for 30 minutes” along with those who post about the pure feeling of nursing, like water

It's going well

Some details I could describe well

I fold instead into a tightly wrapped packet

Privacy, like loose hair, falls around me

Somebody, in a hurry, urgently rattles the bathroom door

“Just a minute!”

As if I could shut myself under the trash can lid

Daughter of the Empire

Daughter of the empire     wants to wake up inside the pages of a magazine 

Milky light inside a catalogue 

Milk light spilled across the grains of stained oak

The round shape of a costly mirror     The shape of the letter O     Or the number zero

Zero circles     like lovely light     

The wishes form a halo

Daughter of the empire     made of the empire’s thoughts 

Her furniture matches     and that is how one knows she is good

So Long 

In 1942 my grandfathers went to Europe     and learned how to call women dames

Richard and Frank     Victory red lipstick     Hair parted in the middle

Shoulder pads like epaulets     and a proud brilliant posture 

The women were so poor     Europe had been dismantled

How the popular songs changed     Smoke gets in your eyes

You left me standing alone     Granddaddy who never

talked about the war     smuggled home the gun of a Nazi

A pistol so diminutive     it can fit in your palm

That doesn’t seem so perilous does it     Waifs

who’d survived thin winters     Their price was almost nothing

When someone’s acting wild you can say, affectionately

“You little pistol”     To mend the world I fold the glorious stories into packets

and leave them on the coasts of Europe     Farewell