1.
The Zero Womb seeks wisdom
and in so doing kindles
the Book of Light.
The lines are only visible
when the darkness shines on them.
The Zero Womb reads
that she has split spacetime
into futures of differing fertilities.
She reads that mother
can mean more than one thing,
more than two things,
and that one can be two, and two, one.
She learns the secret of the trinity
is a miscarrying bodymind,
is the death of God inside God
inside God.
She learns ex nihilo nested in infinity,
a liminality that can’t be legislated
existing on the inside of everything.
The Zero Womb settles at the core of all being,
rejects the hope of any book
not illuminated by darkness.
2.
The Zero Womb resurrects wounds
and feeds them loaves and fishes.
She walks on the road
to an ancient future
holding inside her a key
for how to live in it.
When she says that God is weak
she doesn’t mean that she is strong
only that God cannot erase her
or won’t.
3.
The Zero Womb is a tiger rising
on the back of the sunset
is the mercy of a sail hoisted
into the wind of God’s breath
is a river of blood that never runs dry.
The Zero Womb is empty/and full,
nourishing/and birthing death,
is simply all of us
as we are now.
The Zero Womb wanders
the supermarket aisles
finds nothing to nourish her
provides perfect contrast to florescent lights.
She gulps air
sings in echoes
writes prehistory in negative space
shows the edges of God.
Was once a shallow pool
was once a drop of water
inside a moss leaf
once had a hard shell
once had a viral load
once welcomed the wisdom
of other organs.
Has never been pink
has never lived in the throat
or the stomach
is not always female
is not an animal
or a field to scrawl
our meaning onto.
The Zero Womb stands witness
to the spark and sputter
like a cold lighter hurting a new smoker’s thumb
life blinking its expendable motion
on and off
more random than priceless
more priceless than anything else we’ve got.
1.
The Zero Womb tries to say something about God
and fails.
In failing, the Zero Womb says more about God
than all the books of theology lining her shelf.
She plays the Mystery Card,
but cries foul on anyone else who tries.
The Zero Womb knows the whole world is a child
and is therefore inside her
and not.
She knows that the child requires nurture and also
that she will never be able
to give the child all it needs.
Some days, the Zero Womb gives up.
Some days not.
Her night wakings are serene,
and still resentful.
She is giving all she has
and hording it for herself.
2.
The Zero Womb walks the via negativa,
a path opened by all unsaying.
She meditates in the desert of her body,
stares at her navel
to see the universe,
rewalks the path backwards,
understands all
of nothing.
She is the strange eucharistic fruit,
the rupturing that opens both/and,
the collapsing that makes it all the same.
She chants
zero divided by zero equals zero
equals infinity equals infant equals zero
after Lucille Clifton
in the dream about my daughter
who never became a daughter
her eyes must be fed
with blue & more blue
unfillable wells spoken
into existence by the stars
of pollen on an ordinary tree
that is not me & then her mouth
sprouts a stem of hoarfrost growing
into a crystal flower
I will break if I look away
1.
The Wounded Woman rides the bus
to the future.
She asks the driver for a particular stop
but she knows he might still drive past it.
The cost of the fare no longer surprises her—
it is not more than others have paid.
As she passes each row to her seat
she watches the passengers
fidget or text or read a book.
As long as she touches her wound,
all of their faces glow.
2.
The Wounded Woman dreams a parade
of over-sized wounds.
Without their bodies, they dance,
they sing, they play flutes.
They turn their scabs into tickertape.
When she wakes, she knows
the wound doesn’t need her
the way that she thought
and this is another wound
sprouting beneath it.
3.
The Wounded Woman goes to the neighborhood potluck.
She brings roasted root vegetables in a sauce
made from her tears.
Her neighbors ask her how are you?
They don’t see the wound right in front of them.
She knows if she points to it
they’ll want to circle around like an internment
and bury it with heavy pity
so she says I’m fine how are you?
even though she can see their wound, too.
4.
The Wounded Woman wakes up at night
because her wound is restless.
She goes outside to look at the stars
but the wound swallows the light.
Her breath whistles
in the darkness of her own back yard.
She used to think God was the light
but now maybe, she thinks, God’s the whistle
which is so close.
5.
The Wounded Woman reaches into her wound
and pulls out jewels.
They are stained brown with dried blood
so she washes them off in the sink
and dries them with the end of her sweater.
She takes them outside
where they glint and flicker in the sun.
She knows she has enough wealth
to last a lifetime now.
She knows the wealth wasn’t worth the wound.
She tries to put the jewels back
but too much of the wound has already healed
so she gives them away
instead.
Meredith Kirkwood lives and writes in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Iron Horse Literary Review, Sky Island Journal, Rogue Agent, Variant Literature, ONE ART, and Doubleback Review, among others. In addition to poetry, she writes children’s books about lemurs. She holds an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and teaches writing and literature at Clark College.
Images from Edward Bliss Foote’s Plain Home Talk About the Human System—the Habits of Men and Women—the Cause and Prevention of Disease—Our Sexual Relations and Social Natures (New York: Murray Hill, 1896. (via Public Domain Review)
