Hollowed Spaces<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause if you weren\u2019t an Aunt or a Martha, said Aunt Vidala, what earthly use were you if you didn\u2019t have a baby?\u201d – Margaret Atwood in The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid\u2019s Tale)<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The word womb.<\/span><\/p>\n The speakers of Old English used the word for belly, bowels, heart, uterus.<\/span><\/p>\n Isn\u2019t it amazing that it uses all forms of the word carry?<\/span><\/p>\n It holds like a bowl\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n like the barrel of a gun<\/span><\/p>\n like Hermes.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My last ultrasound was quiet, hollow, void<\/span><\/p>\n as it should have been.<\/span><\/p>\n The only thing that I would have born\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n would have been parasitic and violent,<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But the quiet still gutted me.<\/span><\/p>\n There is something solemn about an empty womb.<\/span><\/p>\n To see it hallowed like a sanctuary, or<\/p>\n hollowed out like a cave<\/span><\/p>\n An echoing image of what could be \u2013for better or worse\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n another life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sobriety occurs when I have a sneaking suspicion<\/span><\/p>\n That the gods aborted all of my babies for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Do I say thank you or scream until there\u2019s a cave-in?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hollowed Spaces \u201cBecause if you weren\u2019t an Aunt or a Martha, said Aunt Vidala, what earthly use were you if you didn\u2019t have a baby?\u201d – Margaret Atwood in The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid\u2019s Tale) The word womb. The speakers of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4411,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4411"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108195"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125198,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108195\/revisions\/125198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}