No one knows the exact whereabouts
of the ovaries; some things we’re not
meant to remember. After your mom
died, you left your childhood home
for good. Ten years later, it’s intact
only in memory. We siphon slowly
through the city, watch the skyline
slide past. Crossing the Washington
Bridge, you’ve come home at last,
where some things we’re not meant
to hold. Tumors are most frequently
found in the ovaries’ epithelium.
Pressing hand to pelvic crest, I imagine
the incision, sutures. Steel instruments
easing each organ apart. Though this
is where we all began, no one wants
to return. Memory takes its retreat,
shuts the lights off, room by room.
Still, something stirs. Life’s germ shifts
imperceptibly—the future, a tiny, single-
celled fact, a body humming with secrets.
from Isako IsakoFind more by Mia Ayumi Malhotra at the library
Copyright © 2018 Mia Ayumi Malhotra
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.