The Birth
In the afternoon I looked
down to find myself
newly green My arms not quite
arms at all, but stems folded
quite politely A body feels
like a body, or a stick, or
a maple seed spinning home My
hidden mandible hands My
knees knocked like
grass blades bent sticky
feet holding to nothing, low
center of gravity swaying over
wind Exposed nerves fever
aches, my bowed head
reverent to each tree And legs
oh God the string tight pressure I
am building my sticky way to
something Serrated parts gripping the
petal tablecloth I used to be able
to hold things Feel heavy
and speak to you
My wings snap, bearing air
I float precious
Pillage
after ‘when the machete will sever the ballad (memory-mourning for El Mozote)’ by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes
a quiet wrenches itself from hiding.
somewhere, deep where the dawn does not reach
there is a rotten blossom curling into
what they call a womb, which is also a home,
a vessel, a pressure cooker
a crop circle and a killing ground
you were born pre-spoiled
from the scrapped leftovers of your brothers
not quite enough matter left to sculpt you powerful
so you were granted beauty to wear like a wound
and your body grew to learn holding and hiding,
that beauty’s closest cousin is pillage.
Molly O’Toole
Molly O’Toole (she/her) is a young writer and recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame. She is originally from Arlington, Massachusetts, but currently living in Sacramento with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Her favorite body of water at the moment is the Passagassawakeag river in Waldo County, Maine. This is her first publication.
Why this knocked Taylor out:
We have a pretty serious 1-2 punch today from DEBUT POET Molly O’Toole. When I realized this was her first pub I lost my mind because seriously, what a powerful statement to make with your first published poems.
When I talk about electricity in poetry this is what I mean. The surrealness of "The Birth" is working so well to bring a reader into solid tangible metamorphosis. Just image after image and line after moment bringing the house down. The body work, and the evolution of the body throughout the poem raises so many questions for an observant reader trying to connect the title to the content. How are we reborn? How is birth a rebuilding of what we thought we knew? How often are we reverent toward the trees (and why isn’t is more often)?
And then I think it pairs so well with "Pillage". The image of the womb as a rotting blossom. The tension between the speaker, the brothers, and their heritage. The body, again, growing and shaping into something new, something having to be remade from the remains of earlier siblings. I find myself wondering about the brothers bodies, how are they powerful when this speaker is not? The delicate nature of the couplets lends to the delicate stance the speaker is on with their own body.
We don’t require poets to send us packets or poems that are meant to be read together, but these two are a prime example of pairing work together and letting the conversation between the two poems, be a bonus in how each poem is read.