A Migraine, an Ax
In a lesser dream,
the false Minerva swaddles
our plastic infants in matted fishing nets.
We tell her to put them under grow lights,
to birth their wildfire bodies,
pound by innocent pound.
Our bruised Earth, looking for meaning,
dresses a mechanical child hoping for flesh,
praying for water.
Vulcan, as a man, cries, what beast
would lay claim to us? To our minds
filled with thick oil, set alight?
Vulcan, as a god, sighs,
You asked for the ax,
you just cut the wrong head.
"You asked for the ax, you just cut the wrong head."
"You asked for the ax, you just cut the wrong head."
Erythocytes Amongst Men
Blood runs down my leg, out of a dark religion
that you seek to inspect and name after yourself,
a country to conquer under blinding white light
and the scalpel.
O Doctor, Scientist, Man of God,
you shouldn't hand me the flowers–
I am the blood-mother of wilt.
Witch me, science me,
declare that you can decipher my autonomics.
Tamponade me, quickly! Before I give birth
to something else you cannot explain.
Fallopio, Bartholin, Skene–
if I were to lay with all the men that named my body
you would call me polluted, a broken seal.
Don’t let me touch the rising dough or the wine–
I am the blood-mother of spoil.
Curse me, sex me,
call me an Eve, whom you love, lay with, and spit on.
O Doctor, Scientist, Man of God,
do you not hold a knife to circumcise? A bowl of bloodlet?
Tell me now, if I threw my bloody rag at your feet
would you cower
or quietly moan?
Alorah Welti is a nineteen-year-old Minnesota-born feminist, synesthete, and emerging poet and artist. Her work is forthcoming in Inklette and Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose, and has been featured in an anthology by Girl God Books. She is a recipient of the Daniel Manacher Prize for Young Artists by the Sandisfield Arts Center. She lives on stolen Mohican and Wabanaki land, now called Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with her family.