On a lamppost near Lake Garda,

my mother drew a uterus,

fallopian tubes snaking out, grasping

ovaries with their fingers.

“This is your reproductive system,” she said.

 

In that Italian tourist town

where a tail of men would always form

behind a woman walking alone,

my uterus was illuminated

like the first letter of a Holy manuscript.

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Published in RHINO Poetry