Mary Szybist

Notes on a 39-Year-Old Body
October 12, 2011 Szybist Mary

Notes on a 39-year-old Body

 

Most internal organs jiggle and glow and are rosy

pink.  The ovary is dull and gray. . . It is scarred

and pitted, for each cycle of ovulation leaves behind

a white blemish where

an egg follicle has been emptied of its contents.

The older the woman, the more

scarred her pair of ovaries will be. . . .

Natalie Angier, Woman: An Intimate

Geography

She was always planning out her own development,

desiring her own perfection, observing

her own progress.

Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

                       

                        in  the         dull     

                               

                          cycle

                               

                         [o]f   desiring

                                       

 

                        *

 

                        [d]ress[ed] in

 

                [my]  own    white    

                                               

                                         [l]ull

 

 

 

                                *

 

             

                  [I]  always plann[ed]              [to] be      

                       

                                content

 

 

                        *     

 

               Most

                                foll[y]

 

 

                      [h]olds       

 

 

 

                        *

 

                or   is       [s]low               

 

                               

                        [to] empt[y]

 

 

                        *

 

 

                internal            ros[es]       glow        

                                               

                                      pink   and

 

                        red          here 

                                       

                                 an[d]                the[re]

                                                       

 

                        *

             

               

 

                        in [s]low  

                                        ink

                                [I]

                         

                                white[n]

                 

Mary Szybist is the author of Granted (Alice James Books), a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Award in Poetry. Her  second collection, Incarnadine, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2013.  Her work appears in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Tin House, and many other journals and reviews. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches at Lewis & Clark College.