ANNOUNCE

What you remember about your grandma’s house is the pinwheels. She put so many along her sidewalk—between the grass and the concrete. Such shining. Spinning. Mesmerize—Memorize. Did you miss something? Did you forget?


AUSCULTATION

They say it’s not possible to photograph the totality of a solar eclipse in any meaningful way. There are too many magnetic ribbons. One frame is not enough. The naked eye cannot be replaced.


BATH

—gentle gentle.


BIRTHDAY

For a long time, you will know the ages of your friends’ sons and daughters. The one born three months before. The one born two weeks after.


BLASTOCYST

At the beach you made castles with an equal mixture sand and water. You know the feeling of the good mud sliding through the inside of your fist. How do you say it? You know if it’s too thin. Or if it’s too thick, it doesn’t work. When it’s just right: the wet mud: look to the northwest—the moon’s shadow approaching
thirty miles per minute—at first looming low on the horizon, deep gray with strange slivers—red and orange: driving through a desert into a herd of storm clouds: the rain, the smell—the lightning you saw hit a juniper bush: a round ball of light.


BODY

Pluto has not cleared the neighborhood yet—it continues hurtling through the solar system.


BOW

Think cotton, think pink and spotted, think bending over on the tile floor, knees to chin, curled, knotted, how bright, dark.


CERVIX

You can look at the sun during totality. It won’t hurt your eyes.


CLOT

Because the moon has a complicated topography, in the path of totality you may see phenomena called “Baily’s Beads” or the “Diamond Ring Effect.” These occur when the moon fully covers the sun and light escapes through the parts where the moon is slipping away.


COMPLETE

Once the bleeding starts, it can’t be stopped. It may take two weeks or longer for the contents of the uterus to pass. During the brief period of totality, the corona is revealed. This is best experienced with the naked eye. Totality may last as long as 7 minutes, though most eclipses are much shorter.


CONCEPTION

You’ll hear the sound of silk filling with air. A satisfying snap and so much pull towards the sky. A different kind of gravity. A different kind of bright.


CRAMPS

The bottom of the ocean. Almost empty.


CURETTE

There’s a hole. A blank space. A circle. A space to cleanse. Go—wash yourself seven times in the river.


D&C

No one tells you at 3:00 a.m. you’ll feel attachment slide out of your own body. You will not know this is possible. You will think you shouldn’t be sitting on a toilet. It’s the middle of the night. No one has time to tell you whether or not there are cemeteries that will bury these bodies.


EMBRYO

Another beginning. You are about to turn ten years old. Spinning on the hard, wood floor of the kitchen in your house. Your dad puts his hand on your head. He says, “Happy birthday—you’re a decade old.”


EXPEL

It can be like this: spraying down a horse with Avon Skin-So-Soft. It helps with the flies, the instructor says. The horse is so tall, muscles rippling and jittering. The coat smooth when you brush the hair this way—but so difficult the other way. Smell of mud from horse urine and dirt, like planting marigolds on a Saturday morning with your sisters, your brother close by. The dirt in your family’s yard has too much clay in it—the manure helps. But here, there is hay everywhere, and a horse in the next stall, watching you. People are arriving for the next lesson. A dog barks in the distance. It’s cold, the night air dark. You can see so many stars. It is you all alone in a bathroom with some towels. A book to read. While you wait. You will have to flush the toilet while your husband sleeps.


FEVER

This flesh happened.


GRIEF

Places where you would prefer for this to happen: A river. A lake. An ocean. Any body of water not contained by ceramics, plastic, or cement. A place with no pipes. Or a place with a deer, a fox, a cow, a sheep. Speechless witnesses.


HEARTBEAT

Horizon line at dusk: purple sky, blue dirt.


HEAVY BLEEDING

Fast. So fast.


LOSS

The moon’s shadow is only a dot. Its path of totality a mere 70 miles wide—and always sliding off the surface of the earth, the bodies moving so quickly in separate directions.


LULLABY

You’re a little teapot short and stout, here is your handle, here is your spout. When you hear me whistle something something, tip me over and pour me out.


MEMBRANES

When the moon crosses in front of the sun, you’ll see the glitter.


NULLIPARA

At first, like a pinata—it’s fun to try to hit it with the bat. There are some good thunk-ing sounds. There are some small pieces of candy. But, then a dead horse in the sky. Bright star!—you can’t stop swinging. There is so much tissue paper.


PLACENTA

Hot air balloons lift of from a field by your house. So much muscle needed to keep them near the ground. Near enough for the passengers to climb in their baskets—celebrating so many things.


PREGNANCY TEST

You made the pinhole camera with tin foil, stiff sheets of paper, a cardboard box that came in the mail. It was difficult to only look at the ground.


PRIMIGRAVIDA

There were so many girls dressed in shiny light lavender walking around the gym floor. Each one with a partner dressed in a tux. It’s a party for your best friend. She’s not Catholic, and she’s not actually going to get married—but she is fifteen. How do you spell “festivity”? How do you spell dancing? How do you spell jumping up and down to a song that sounds like “Cotton-Eyed Joe”? How do you spell the name of the time when everything was a first?


RITUAL

After making a wish, blow out a candle.


SHOWER

Silk, silk, silk, silk, silk—


TISSUE

It is not just red, but all the dark colors of the rainbow. Purple. Blue. Not part of you, but something you are folding and crinkling into a bloom your teacher will hang from the ceiling for the party. The paper, unfolded, translucent—you can see so much through it—the window, the lightness of sky.


UMBILICAL CORD

A blood of stars a pilgrim named “la Vía Láctea.” (The darkest shrine the moon casts on Earth. You can follow the way over several months. There are many resting spots).


UTERUS

Pear! Sweet and cold. Eat it at noon.


ZYGOTE

The envelope is closed.