See the mother. See through her skin. See the skeleton. See inside the body. Look, there is another body, only smaller and made of disconnected parts. What constitutes a body? See, Mother has a pelvis. See the pelvis move, separate, tilt and open. Shine a flashlight in. Look. See the body inside of the body? Wait no the body is gone. Someone has stolen the body? Who has done this to the body! See but don’t hear the baby screaming. And there’s a theory that says birth is the first experience of anxiety, so do you think that’s why everyone, all the time, is still fucking screaming? The father is outside of the hospital. The infant is outside of the womb. The breath is outside of the mother’s mouth and she keeps trying to hold in all the air but she collapses like a faulty lung. You never get to see how the outside layer of bone fuses together then holds up her, holds up the body. See the father smoking. See the mother, panting.

Court Ludwick is the author of THESE STRANGE BODIES (ELJ Editions, 2024), and the founding editor-in-chief of Broken Antler Magazine. Her words have appeared or are forthcoming in Archetype, West Trade Review, Full House Literary, Oxford Magazine, Jet Fuel Review, New Note Poetry, Sweet Tooth, Watershed Review, Red Noise Collective, and elsewhere. Find Court on Instagram and Twitter @courtludwick. Find more of her work on www.courtlud.com.