My gynecologist asks if others may watch.
I consent. Already numb, why not?
There should be an audience for this end.

An antiphon could be written in the hum
of machinery & whirr. My feet cold on metal
stirrups, my legs bent high in a squat,

I tune the sterile out. After today I won't
have a period, that punctuation I prayed for
at times will disappear. He tells me I will feel

some pressure, a little pinch, then dilate wide:
my cervix, my eyes. A laparoscopic camera
enters my universe, reveals on the monitor

a contrast to anatomy diagrams
of an inflamed red trumpet: a loft aglow—
carnations, white feathers, heaven

inside of me. The whole room presses
close to the screen. I turn my head away
as we tear the cradle down.
from the book UNDOLL / YesYes Books
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Playbill for a performance of the Songs and Sonnets of William Shakespeare
"The Bard Goes Country"

"Adam Frumhoff asked a few of us if we’d like to hear songs from a project he’d been working on. Egged on by our enthusiastic nods, he grabbed his guitar and launched into a country version of a Midsummer Night’s Dream monologue that was so haunting I hummed it for days."

via UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA POETRY CENTER
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Cover of Mary Ruefle's book, The Most of It.
What Sparks Poetry:
Arda Collins on Mary Ruefle's “The Bench”


"[T]he argument about the bench, like many arguments, is about truth. The participants both believe their bench is the true bench. Despite the argument’s low stakes, it describes the larger philosophical positions of the speaker and the husband. The speaker describes her bench in terms of the eternal; the husband’s bench is mortal." 
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