Two Weeks Before the Surgery
xx I think of anything else I can
with some success, but when the pain (question
x x for which the procedure may be an answer)
intrudes as I hike my daily miles
xx or carry bags from the car, the subject
is forced on me, presenting as presence
xx that is, too, all question: I don’t know my life
after, nor during the minutes or hours
xx they’ll punch circles in my abdomen
by which to see. It helps to consider ancient surgeries
xx from which a patient might return—holes
in their skull, say—altered, honored, owning
xx another sight, wearing the pieces. Could be I’ll wake
from my strange sleep with a knowledge
xx inexpressible in language: imagine, portrait of changed
woman with (god willing) diagnosis.
Mercy
after a day of pain a quick hard storm
a tin roof near enough to the barn
soft tips of rain the mockingbird
shelters on a post under the buckled eave
and it’s evening on a day of grief
my womb rolled all day like thunder
on a day the sun made that seem wrong
improper context for nerves to make
small bright strikes to high ground of my hips
now water dumps itself to distended earth
so hard it bounces so fast it shows
like a fog the way it flies back up
now everyone can smell ozone and feel
pricks to all open inch of skin
the animals now can stand out in
the storm that started can run through
what started in me then dragged oh
x then drew
Emma Aylor is the author of Close Red Water (2023), winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Book Prize. Her poems have appeared in New England Review, AGNI, Poetry Northwest, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, where she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Stephen F. Austin State University.
She can be found on Instagram @emmaylor and at www.emmaaylor.com.
