“Myomectomy” by Leila Chatti

Myomectomy

At the center of the dark

room an aureole: there,

pricked at the wrists

by IV cords, robed except for

the waist, my body

lay reposed and bleeding

like the inverse of the child-­

God, my body left

open like a window.

They entered, innominate

doctors, their hands blue

as sky slipping through that oculus

to retrieve what had taken root-

 

it resembled a pomegranate

when lifted into view, ruddy

globe cradled by two hands, fruit

of the dead-but it was not

dead, nor was I, I was still

living, that bright vermillion

my proof-and so, like me,

they split my womb

right down the middle, the wound

precise. And from beneath

the tumor emerged, eager, as if to be

born-bald creature with no father

and no future. Savior of no one.