to be a woman is to be that thin casing
in which knowledge is embedded
in thick knots of sausage-wire that
coils against fair skin, sweet skin,
kempt skin. kept thin and malleable
bruising and tearing and fit to burst.

Hecuba died a mother because
once new life had seen the inside
of her, the messy sprawling tubes
and wires of her, it was all she had
left to be. oh, the towers of troy crumbled
around her but she keened a cry
for her children alone.
let the men play at war
women only play at bodies.

but she was a just caricature of a
womb, wailing the wide walls down.
and I have seen the woman knowledge
of my labyrinth of cell-swelled cords,
and I have seen the woman cries of those
who no longer have a choice.

– Hannah Janson