Getting the Beast Out by Lucy Simpson

my tumorous gland
call her Echidna
soft lumpy cold hairy beast
she is sitting in a lab
carved tissue thin
under glass slides
I don’t miss
my little beast
she used to growl at night
as she curled into herself
her spines flattening
against my soft skin
she’s not the mother of monsters
she’s an unwanted child
of my body
she’s under microscopes
pieces of her pink as petals

please say something kind
before you turn out the light

Lucy Simpson

Lucy Simpson lives in Seattle with her two children and husband. She teaches writing to adolescents at her local community center, home-schools her own children, writes and sculpts. Her poems have appeared in Harlot’s Sauce, Poetry Bone and Gargoyle, among other publications. Her website is One Thousand Days and Nights

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