SOMEWHERE WITHIN
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