After Judith, by Shannon Connor Winward

Judith Slaying Holofernes, by Artemisia Gentileschi (Italy), 1611-1612.

After Judith

She in tekhelet, blue as 
the drapes of priests or
tabernacles
her maid in dull crimson 
old sacrifice.

His blood on sheets white as
the under-layers of their gowns
his hold on her collar 
impotent, stainless
their purity intact.

It is he that is held down 
and rendered, given
his head in this moment before 
it becomes something other; property
for old men, proof.

She has pulled up the sleeves 
of her finery, set to it
as if she has slaughtered 
lambs before
she has no mercy.

This is like to what we do, after all
in back rooms, in dark chambers
this is marriage, bloodletting, birth.
This is the labour of our hands, this
is woman's work.

Shannon Connor Winward

Shannon Connor Winward is the author of the Elgin-award winning chapbook, Undoing Winter. and a two-time runner up for the Delaware Division of the Arts Fellowship in literature. Her work has appeared in (or is forthcoming from) Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, The Pedestal Magazine, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. In between writing, parenting, and other madness, Shannon is also an officer for the Science Fiction Poetry Association, a poetry editor for Devilfish Review and founding editor of the forthcoming Riddled with Arrows Literary Journal.