life size by Rebecca Kokitus

life size

*previously published by Rhythm & Bones

Charles Allan Gilbert - All is Vanity 1892

when I was 12 or 13 I saw

a diagram of the uterus

that ram’s skull painted in

blood and tongue color

and I imagined it immense,

filling me from hip to hip

I was surprised to find out that

my birthplace—that place

where we all nestled like

the yolk of an egg

all slime and yellow

sprouting downy—

can fit in my palm, tubes and bulbs

flickering like fallen power lines

and my lungs, too, are small,

which surprised me just as much

because at 12 or 13, all girls

know the bleed and scream

look at their bodies and think

this image is not to scale

Rebecca Kokitus is a poet residing in the Philadelphia area. She has had poetry and prose published in various journals and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018. Her poetry chapbook, Blue Bucolic is forthcoming from Thirty West Publishing House in 2019. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @rxbxcca_anna, and you can read more of her writing on her website: https://rebeccakokitus.wixsite.com/rebeccakokitus.

#rebeccakoikitus #girlhood #kandelist