after Florence Wyle
Flo was the artist. I managed the blood
and bones, babies slick with afterbirth,
sicknesses like ciphers in the gridwork
hallways of the teaching hospital. She gave birth
on paper and in wood, bronze
when she could get it. I saw her sketching
skeletons the first day of Anatomy—
we were the only girls
in the lecture hall. I had to know
this woman so intent on rendering
jigsaw hands in graphite. While I watched
cells sculpt life from proteins,
she hauled home scrap
from a carpentry shop and made it
move like water under her
fingers. In the hospital cafeteria
she whispered that she had to know
my scapulae’s arch across my back,
the ripple of my ribs, laddered
beneath my breasts, while her hand
lit, light as breath, on my wrist.
She undid and remade me
like a surgeon or a god. I had to pray
my hands steady in the lab
and the delivery room, as I made
my signature in every umbilical
knot. I scrubbed and swaddled,
then hurried to our studio
apartment to nights when she made my hips
echo through a hundred variations
on love and lines, sheets and flesh. And even
though she’s thirty years and five hundred miles
away, I order Toronto gallery catalogues
to trace the familiar shape
of thighs and shoulders, my reinvented body
in which she made her name.
Tags: marika prokosh, poetry
Oh, this is lovely. Great to see poetry on here so soon!
This is amazing. I don’t feel like I really know how to talk about poetry, but the imagery was vivid and powerful and it made me feel things. Kudos to The Toast, too, for breaking the mould of what sites aimed at women can include.
This was really strikingly powerful. <3
a) I like the zoom of years and miles away
b) I sometimes worry that women worry about writing about blood and bones when they’re writing poetry nowadays (like, maybe it’s retrogressive? BUT IT ISN’T) so I feel VERY happy about all of this
c) I now know who Florence Wyle and her partner are and thank you to poetry, the internet, Canadian lesbians and The Toast.
Make sure you read the short story “What Remains” featured in Emma Donoghue’s collection Astray. A wonderful snapshot of their lives together.
This is great.
This is great.
I have always thought that “excellent poetry” and “women-oriented publication” belong together. Hurrah for carrying on this tradition.
I have always thought that "excellent poetry" and "women-oriented publication" belong together. Hurrah for carrying on this tradition.
Glorious. Will there be regular poetry, please?
I love this poem, and I was even more excited when I read that you’re from winnipeg! I’m from Winnipeg! Yay prairie writers!
LOVED this.
“nights when she made my hips
echo through a hundred variations
on love and lines, sheets and flesh.”
This is wonderful. I’m so excited about The Toast as a venue for poetry!
"nights when she made my hips
echo through a hundred variations
on love and lines, sheets and flesh."
This is wonderful. I'm so excited about The Toast as a venue for poetry!
Added to my to-read list!