Ode to Ovaries
According to biology women are born with all the eggs//they’ll ever have//
so some girl collects robin shells//and finches and blue jays//
drains the slippery bodies inside like oysters//til all that’s left//is hollow//
til their dead pulses//turn this into a poem//and she waits//
and waits and waits//lining them up on her windowsill//like smooth yellow
pills//hoping to feel that kick inside her belly//that means something//
is finally alive.
Trust Fall
Your father drowned//all your imaginary friends//one by one//
laid their bodies to sleep//by the stray river dogs//
sack of bones//bag of loss//burlap of relief & missing//
as a double feature.//At seventy-three now//
he still eats hollandaise with toast//for breakfast//
and drinks himself//to an early bed//
calling nightly on the phone//to ask, did it hurt//
when I killed them?//And you, being the “good girl” you are//
say no, no it didn’t hurt//secretly wishing//he would
have done the same//to the men who broke you open//
because you, you//
are worth more than that.
Hermione Granger to Kitty Genovese
They called me Mudblood, teased the piles of curls
it took me hours to tame, scorned my books & mocked
my study habits until I ran crying to the bathroom,
until they turned me into beeswarm
& river dust, until they made me feel as useless
as they thought I was.
It was my best friend whom that circle of boys
tried to open in the cornfield that day,
before the wax-sealed letter,
before Hogwarts and spells.
Before I defeated the Devil’s Snare.
There were no potions or magic that day,
just her good strong body, her fight,
her holy & wholeness she refused
to let them take.
Kitty, you and your wounded hands.
You and your last breaths, your screams,
you as shot glass, three wrong seasons,
a left turn that was meant to be right.
Kitty, you are my Dumbledore’s Army.
That full of bravery, that full of resistance.
If I could, I would levitate you
out of that hallway & away from him.
But like all famous stories,
this one is fiction too.
I only hope, Kitty, that in the afterlife
you come back as a Patronus,
so you can protect someone else
the way no one protected you.
About the Artist: Meggie Royer is a writer and photographer from the Midwest who is currently majoring in Psychology at Macalester College. Her poems have previously appeared in Words Dance Magazine, Winter Tangerine Review, Harpoon Review, and more. In March 2013 she won a National Gold Medal for her poetry collection and a National Silver Medal for her writing portfolio in the 2013 National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Much of her work focuses on empowering girls & women.
