“Wineapple Rind” (2024) - Rachel Sumner
There are painters in the stairway
And they'll work a week or so
Some are visited by Aunts or
Communists in the gazebo

Is it just propriety?
Our fear of rightly naming things?
We give a sense of sorcery
To what we leave unsaid

And we can move the menses
With some herbs that stir the senses
Part the Red Sea, make us ready
To leave motherhood alone

I am:
Tied to the moon
Charting a life
Reading the runes
Drawing the knife
Cutting the roots
For the midwife
Yarrow and yew;
Wineapple rind
Clearing the room
Spotting the right
Spotting the right
Time for me

The fruit that Eve had eaten
Cast her out of good ol’ Eden
So too was dear Persephone’s
Sweet tooth rewarded so

Within a pomegranate
We see life and death are granted
But at least the view is beautiful
If we gotta fall

Hildegard von Bingen
Listed botanicals to bring in
To relieve a woman's burden
And she's as saintly as they come

But those wombless men in Washington
Have said the burden lies with them
We sigh and wait while they side with Wade
But I’m not theirs to own