diseases of unwed girls

title from Hippocrates, translated by David Hayden Camden

my body wants a baby
despite the circumstances, the ramen at the kitchen sink at midnight,
the bargain-bin fruit, jelly-soft and splitting, the amex too sharp
at the register, drawing blood.
the whole world is having a baby. my cousin is having a baby,

any day now, gray and grainy on the ultrasound: fat creased arms,
already an inch of hair. i measure an inch with my thumb and finger,
a downy-soft bite of air, a heavy emptiness.
that’s the trouble with love, you know. it sits
in vacant places, expanding like a gas, stretching the skin

along all axes. last winter a gecko found its way inside the house.
i saw his brown tail vanish
a dozen times, a hundred, fast as life and too slick
for my hands. i thought he would starve. i thought he
would poop in my sock drawer (he did). i thought he would never

leave, please never leave, please sit on the dresser and cock
your lozenge head, flick your tongue at the ants in the corner, listen
to me sing and laugh. and cry. in spring i unboxed my sandals
and found his body blackened and shriveled,
curled up like half a heart in the dust of the closet.

sometimes i hate this world, and i like to have something to blame.
i chafe against the walls of my skin,
striving for some mold into which to pour my own raw
and unfinished self. is the womb not
such a vessel?

hippocrates tells me i am bleeding too much, red on red from gut
to throat, heart so clogged it’s floating.
i watch from my porch when the sunlight runs hot,
waiting for movement from the shadows, lizards reaching
out to touch the light. my body like a leashed dog, yanking.

Read more from Issue 19.1.