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SOMEWHERE WITHIN
 

203670_silence for an art cover a monochrome image of clo_xl-1024-v1-0.png

Somewhere Within 

it was common that women were treated for nymphomania, hysteria and

                     any “female” imbalance by being bled with leeches on their vulva and perineum.

                                                                                             (Gronemen, Nymphomania: A History)

Perhaps the Dr. was called late, late into the night, nightly, late 
and called again, his black bag crammed with the clink of leeches
 
jars lined up to suck her selfhood yet again, set like moss across her vulva, 
the pink flesh of her mind never condensed, engorged in spider veins
 
sprung free. Perhaps, she wants to know all of it. Perhaps. Perhaps 
they call her witch, they call her hysteric; perhaps, she wants to know: 
 
do leeches drink well from her disease? O the curious leech who escapes 
his fate to swim within, enter her blood-yolk—here her marriage bed: long—ing 
 
clot-remorse; what is the will of a willful barnacle? To attach: the sides of her womb 
finally filling, an embryo of selfsuck-blood to grow fast and fat, round 
 
like days and nights alive; o, sponge, o, shudder— to convulse this way. Yes—
they call her witch, her unwashed hair, yes, her spiral eyes, 
 
yes, they call her hysteric, bleeding the parts impacted, the parts expended, 
yes—used, though never released— o, the packing: her words finally drowned 
 
to the density of an ignited chain reaction, wildfire release—child 
child finally—leech-child born to shatter, mosquito-like, in her arms.

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This Poem first appeared in the Braving the Body Anthology

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