Bare Root Review Fall 2010 #11

1.

At fifty-five Menstruation gives notice
and retires to Barrow, Alaska.
In an echoey attic wallpapered with moonlight
I pack away her abandoned paraphernalia:
..................twelve pairs of red silk stockings,
..................a pair of hollow ovaries like empty drawers,
..................one used uterus—a deserted ballroom
..................where the monthly dances have been canceled,
..................fallopian tubes like twin rusted roller coasters
..................in a closed-down amusement park,
..................one empty bottle of a body
..................with the womanness all poured out.

2.

We met in sixth grade
and oh, how they had warned me about you:
..................red alert
..................mean streak
..................ruby-crested blackbird crooning mystifying songs
..................of breasts and boys and bloody banners.

Little Red Sliding Blood,
you kept barging into Grandma’s house
each month unannounced,
pesky and mopey and too skittish to stick around,
careening right back in every month like a boomerang of blood,
tracking the tar of biology all over my white fur rug.

None of us girls ever liked you.
Yet now, with you gone
my body feels naked on the inside
..................the red carpet yanked out from under me
..................as I slink toward the back rooms of womanhood
and each month dawns like a colorblind sunrise,
gray daubed blandly on gray.
I even miss the excruciating embrace
of your crown of thorns around my loins.

3.

If clothes make the man
does blood complete the woman?
If, after forty red-drenched years,
a woman in the forest stops bleeding
does anyone at all still see her
..................a woman in name only,
..................bloodless as a ghost
her body a derelict temple where a howling, sexless sibyl
pokes out her tongue to catch the first hot drops
of an oncoming tropical storm.

Chicago poet Pamela Miller has been writing, publishing and performing her work for more than 30 years. She has published three books of poetry, most recently Recipe for Disaster (Mayapple Press, 2003). Her poems have recently appeared, or are forthcoming, in After Hours, flashquake, Concho River Review, The Great American Poetry Show 2, Rambunctious Review and the anthology Solace in So Many Words. She is currently looking for a publisher for her fourth book, Miss Unthinkable.
	1. At fifty-five Menstruation gives notice and retires to Barrow, Alaska. In an echoey attic wallpapered with moonlight I pack away her abandoned paraphernalia: ..................twelve pairs of red silk stockings, ..................a pair of hollow ovaries like empty drawers, ..................one used uterus—a deserted ballroom ..................where the monthly dances have been canceled, ..................fallopian tubes like twin rusted roller coasters ..................in a closed-down amusement park, ..................one empty bottle of a body ..................with the womanness all poured out. 2. We met in sixth grade and oh, how they had warned me about you: ..................red alert ..................mean streak ..................ruby-crested blackbird crooning mystifying songs ..................of breasts and boys and bloody banners. Little Red Sliding Blood, you kept barging into Grandma’s house each month unannounced, pesky and mopey and too skittish to stick around, careening right back in every month like a boomerang of blood, tracking the tar of biology all over my white fur rug. None of us girls ever liked you. Yet now, with you gone my body feels naked on the inside ..................the red carpet yanked out from under me ..................as I slink toward the back rooms of womanhood and each month dawns like a colorblind sunrise, gray daubed blandly on gray. I even miss the excruciating embrace of your crown of thorns around my loins. 3. If clothes make the man does blood complete the woman? If, after forty red-drenched years, a woman in the forest stops bleeding does anyone at all still see her ..................a woman in name only, ..................bloodless as a ghost her body a derelict temple where a howling, sexless sibyl pokes out her tongue to catch the first hot drops of an oncoming tropical storm.