a poem –

 

is a sickly, shuddering thing that sits heavily in the bottom of my gut;

 

festering in my womb.

 

it pulls at the back of my eyelids

 

murmuring incomprehensibly against the bones of my pelvis.

 

i stiffen with contractions and feel the teeth of the poem scrape

 

against the inside of my flesh;

 

(a bruised landscape)

 

its limbs have grown large and press into my ribs.

 

the discomfort is blackening my lips

 

and the poem shifts.

 

my body is a fireplace of burning embers

 

and i feel full of poems, anticipating birth.

 

they beat their little fists against my gorged belly 

 

desperate for escape.