Portrait of a Womb, by .chisaraokwu.

Crystal Object, photograph by Bodo Sperling (1952, Hanau) [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of a Womb
​
Where do we hide the things we cannot un-see? 
In the cataract of an eye?
In the decaying muscle fibers of an infarcted heart?
In a papier-mâché womb?

Her womb is the portrait of an ocean-coloured 
sky filled with our dead things. You ask: 
how does a woman hold a dead man in her womb?  

She wraps him 
in paper-thin gold, with chains like metal 
keloids of ripped flesh fastened to her bosom 
so that he will not slip--

            his body hangs from her tree  
            his head lobbed to one side, bobbing 
            like a brown-petaled flower blooming.  

She drapes her soul in pearls.

The allure of metal on black skin 
has hypnotized the observer & the observed
for centuries. One might say 
arrogance wears death with aplomb.
One might claim
the infamy is her own scarred 
womb turned window, like a eulogy 
praising death. One might wish

she were saying this is
so we won’t forget        that
within that dark pool of the soul
a world of dead men hang, fixed
pretty in gold.

.chisaraokwu.

Editor's note: This poem was written about Rest in Peace, a visual artwork/photograph by Fabiola Jean-Louis (USA, b. Haiti). Please click here and scroll down to see the stunning original image of inspiration for this poem. The image shown above is a placeholder as we were unable to contact the artist. 

.chisaraokwu. is a poet, actor & healthcare futurist. She is grateful to have had her works published in many literary and academic journals. She is passionate about addressing trauma through the arts, is semi-obsessed with the indigenous religious traditions of the Igbo of eastern Nigeria and completely obsessed with the Italian language.  Find her on IG: @naijabella.