Post-Roe, by Kathryn Moll

Femme Assise, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1929

​Post-Roe

Should they ask 
 
how I am sleeping now, in this racket of breaking 
news, please tell them 
 
I’ve been dreaming
a mirror—absorbing its slap-
 
dash displays, the after-hours
flash of features I’ll catch, hanging about 
 
the plane of my face
A snare 
 
of teeth, the loops of knotted pearls in pink-
tinged green.  In the dream
 
I’ve found the once-familiar niceties
may all be rearranged
 
manually—that my whole composition has been kept 
in place with only a gentle adhesive
 
It’s not unusual now, to observe my eyebrows 
applied upside-down, a hair or an arm 
 
at odd angles. Other nights I uncover 
a nostril, the swing of a nipple 
 
or two black moles—like pits 
for eyes.  Parts that are interchangeable 
 
loose as the laundry quarters 
scattered on a bureau
 
& my lips seem to slip
constantly.  See them peeling up from the edges
 
two tired flaps that have all but lost 
their grip.  In the dark
 
and dreaming, it’s a wonder 
I haven’t mislaid them
 
outright
​
​Kathryn Moll

Kathryn Moll is an architect and California native.  Her text-based drawings—collaborative works created under the name modem—have been shown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and the Cooper Union in New York City.  She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.