Contents of a Canopic Jar (My Large Intestine Speaks), by Emily Bowles

A Complete Set of Canopic Jars, about 800 to 900 B.C., Walters Art Museum [Public domain, CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Contents of a Canopic Jar (My Large Intestine Speaks)

Serqet clings tightly to her neck,
and the girl turns mute but begins to breathe.
Snake or scorpion, she is no
match for my serpentine windings: five feet,
home to a forgotten multitude of
creatures, unevolved. Revolting, some think.

Efflorescent population
of a dark, moist microbiome that seems
incidental, excremental.
I am home to them all, and they break down
the things you can never digest,
like the falcon’s tomial tooth.

That falcon-headed god said he’d return her heart.
No matter, so long as my coils descend.
Consume her, contain her.

Emily Bowles

Emily Bowles is a writer and teacher in Wisconsin.  She's published poems in Page & Spine, The Road Not Taken, Word Curd, and the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets' forthcoming calendar.  Some of her writing is available on her blog at: http://braving77.blogspot.com/.