Menorrhagia

What spills out from me:

vines, tentacled sea creatures

slick, dark green ribbons of kelp

chunks of whale blubber, red krill

foam and saltwater

pieces of my organs

barnacles, crusted claws of crabs

dregs of sorrow

from love’s decay

and from the absence

of the second child

I will never bear

whose food is sloughing off

whose tantrums

tear at my womb

from the inside

--Third place finalist, Poetry Society of Virginia 2024 Contest, Cenie H. Moon Prize -- Published in Literary Mama, April/May 2025

Vincent Van Gogh