My Body Becomes the World
By Robbi Nester
Response
Roan Mountain
By Katie Helms
Inspiration piece
For years, I have lived in this body,
worked it, let it take me wherever it would go,
walking the city streets for miles.
I never had to think about what lay under
the surface, where the lungs rise and fall,
twin islands in the arteries’ flow.
Just yesterday, with other women
wondering about the world
inside they could not see,
I studied the pelvis, tipped
slightly forward like a leaky pot.
The uterus and vulva nest within,
neat as a matryoshka. In the back,
a triangular frill of bone
delicate as hand-made lace
anchors it all to the spine.
Today I am examining a watercolor landscape:
layered hills, moving toward summer sea swells,
translucent greens and blues laid lightly
like a veil, the mist that rises over the hills
in early light. But as I look,
the hills become a cross section
of flesh on a tinted slide.
Inside or outside, from
the window or in
the microscope’s bright
arc, inside and out
seem just alike, subject
to tides and the vagaries of weather.