Today's poem is by Dawn Manning

The Chronic Inflammatory Disease, Endometriosis, Talks Back
       

We ghosts grow close as second skin.
No ultrasound or CAT scan can trace our figurations—
no,no, my sweet, my succulent. They'll have to cut you open
to believe you. Stripped of your birthday suit, they'll rank you
for our inner beauty—our size and number, the particulars
of our appearance, and our favorite hangouts, especially
the scar tissue and adhesions (which they'll leave more of
in the wake of their prodding). We feed with slippery fingers.
Mostly in the abdomen. But we love to feel our way along
the line of your limbs, and your bronchioles. We love the curve
of your bladder—lichen its walls with powder burns, blood blisters—
swelling and contracting so there's no relieving yourself, only
labor pains, contractions that leave you unconscious on the cold tiles
of the bathroom floor without a pesky baby at the end of the pain.
We've left fluid in the paracardial sac wombing your heart as a token
of appreciation. It'll go unwitnessed until we're so inflamed
we crush the meat of you. You're the offal of our desire.

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Copyright © 2024 Dawn Manning All rights reserved
from Pleiades
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission