Woven Circle


Ovaries, uterus, cervix that twice felt the bite of child
bone--all that woman baggage is gone. You lie

hunched in a knot, cradled in blankets. So quiet
I bend over to see if you are still breathing. You give

a small moan. Like the dolls that once entranced us, do you
cry out, Mama? I caress your face. Your hands flutter

open, wanting touch—as if we could be young again, fingertips
soft as buds. Draw pictures on each other’s backs. Flower

spider’s web, shadow of cancer—all start from the same
same woven circle. For weeks, you walked around with terror

knotted in your eyes. I couldn’t make your ovaries close
their mouths. Today that culprit passed. Okay, the doctor

says. I stare at your face. Your skin and mine will melt
like the rotted arms of dolls we can never hold

again. Unfolding buds, we nestled together inside
the mother womb and reached for life as one. How is it then

we must depart alone? Eyelids flip open, like those
of dolls, your face coming back to life again. Hurts, you

cry. I want to pull down huge flowers for you—the sun,
the moon, the smoldering petals of stars. You are alive

alive, and I stroke your body, yearning to solace the broken
skin and limn a garland, tether you to earth and me.

Margaret Walther is a retired librarian and a past president of Columbine Poets, which promotes poetry in Colorado. She grew up on a farm with no electricity, yet the stars were magnificent at night. Her poems are published or forthcoming in many journals. She won the Many Mountains Moving 2009 Poetry Contest, and two poems published by In Posse Review in 2010 were selected by Web del Sol for its e-SCENE best of the Literary Journals.