Are you sensitive to TMI? I’ll put a gallery of butterflies at the end of this post to cleanse your mental palate after you read this.

I once submitted to a magazine a poem about pelvic floor therapy and bladder control. The editor rejected my poem but complimented me on my bravery in choosing the subject matter. It’s probably yet another symptom of what my kids tell me is a wee bit of autism, but I just don’t have a lot of discomfort with bodily exposures. Here I am, look, think about, whatever, who cares. I cross my legs when I sneeze, though the therapy did help a lot. The poem doesn’t apologize, it simply is.

But it was a good poem, and I eventually published it here on my blog, since nobody else wanted it.

The body and the world are inextricably intertwined. When I have something to say about the world, my body inserts itself into the conversation, or is it the other way around? I was a body first, I am a body first. So when nobody asked me what I think about this week’s presidential election and I’m going to tell y’all anyway (ahem autism), this poem about a failed attempt at a cervical biopsy came to mind. I was saving it for publication, but instead I’m giving it to you for free now. You can thank the man who so loves his golden toilet.

Biopsy

Humans have this way of destruction
unlike the bison whose tread makes
the earth ready for grass to grow
for next year’s bison to eat
and birds spread seeds of the plants
they eat which grow more food
for birds, yet we are different.
We burn down the world. We fight
each other and whole ecosystems
must be unraveled.
Like the time I left the stage
when my scene was over, tripped
on the support that held up the set
and took it down with me. I’m driving
and I know the way, and the mistakes,
but I make them again, exactly same as last time.
I have ripened my last egg, and didn’t
even notice, but the pituitary is kicking out
the hormone, cheering, pleading,
come on guys, ovaries, I’m talking to you,
let’s go one more time. The doctor
wants to know, why all this bleeding.
I want to know, why are giraffes
disappearing. Why does the creek
smell like petroleum. Why are
sperm counts falling. I’m trying to open
through the pain but it doesn’t work.
She can’t get the tube in—stenotic, she says
—but even a failed attempt
causes a little more bleeding.