“Boulder County, September 2012” by Michele Battiste

[audioplayer file=”https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BattisteBoulder.mp3″]

Michele Battiste

BOULDER COUNTY, SEPTEMBER 2012: UPON LEARNING THE IUD BECAME DISLODGED FOUR DAYS AFTER INSERTION, I THOUGHT

a gold microfiber couch may not have been the most practical

choice. There’s always a mess somewhere and a five-year-old

everywhere and a leak and a draft and bacon grease and glitter glue

and seriously? During my parents’ first visit from the swamps

of mid-coast Florida and the 100-year flood? Because my timing

has always been wretched and I never go far enough in malady

to merit bed rest and isolation.

Four days prior: This might get you all the way through to menopause

Because nothing cheers a woman more than a bridge to shrink

the distance between fertility and fallow womb, unless it’s a reasonable

manifestation of Catholic retribution: of course God will punish

me for sexy sex though I supposed his smite would less resemble

a small, copper coil dangling from my cervix and appear more like

brimstone.

Or a flood. Because, really, shouldn’t everyone

in Boulder County suffer for my liberated orgasms, not just

my somewhat flustered 54-year-old boyfriend weathering nasty

texts about vasectomies and speculums and cramps.

Four days to wait to see if the clinic can fit me

in on Friday, and there’s no moral or clever ending. I’m just sad

it will never again make sense for me to want a baby.

—from Rattle #51, Spring 2016
Tribute to Feminist Poets

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__________

Michele Battiste: “As a white, heterosexual, divorced-but-dating, suburban, middle-class mother who works from home raising money to support healthier school food and volunteers on the school garden committee, I often feel like a very un-radical feminist. An ineffectual feminist. A feminist who, 21 years after her life was changed by reading Cixous, can’t believe the traditional class and gender roles she now embodies. It’s easy to lose sight of the small, undetectable and countless acts of feminism I enact throughout the seeming banality of my days. The small, domestic world of my feminism is reflected in my poetry, and my poetry continues to be based on a foundational concept of second-wave feminist writing: the personal is political. I explore power dynamics, sexuality (albeit often heterosexual), objectification of the other, and basic women’s rights such as safety from violence and reproductive choice through strategies that attempt to anchor abstract principles in narrative. Narrative is a powerful political tool. I am a powerful feminist when I use it.” (website)