Ablation

Whether the best method to staunch heavy bleeding is uterine ablation.
Whether pastel-hued dream flowers in a hunter-green dream field.
Whether the pills to reduce bleeding taste like nothing, just air.
Never, never, never, never, never! bemoans King Lear,
beholding a mess of his own making. Dear Reader, do pity him.
Whether the lightning strike of the ultrasound wand. O where, O where?
Whether the little dog turned away from the center of town, collar frayed.
Back into the illuminated room of today, hands braced on the doorway.
Whether dilation of the cervix is painful. If you’ve already given birth, maybe not.
Whether you gulp and gulp and gulp air before flip-turning against the pool wall.
Before I had a D&C to end a miscarriage, I daydreamed about taking up running.
Whether I wore a paper gown that inflated with warm air. The absurdity.
I don’t even like to run but I suppose I wanted to run away
though the pregnancy was nonviable, had become life-threatening, etc., etc.
Look, a happier memory is me in a hospital bed cradling my newborn son,
then me in a different hospital bed cradling my newborn daughter.
Whether pastel dream flowers encircle those moments.
Whether time fleets, fleets away. It does. It scampers, flower-footed.
Whether the bells of the church down the street are always marking it.
Mark me, I will not buckle like a carbon-heavy star.
Nor am I a giant tortoise, laying mineral-shelled eggs in a sandy hole.
Look, said the doctor, it only takes a few minutes to put in an IUD and then it’s done.
Whether the hormones affect only the uterus and ovaries and not the brain.
Whether I will swim across the wide bay. I am training and training to do it.
When the D&C was over I woke up. A woman told me I’d bled a lot,
gave me antihemorrrhagic medicine and a peanut butter sandwich.
I watched Jeopardy! on the hospital TV and couldn’t answer any questions.
My mother was gone with my son. My daughter wasn’t born yet.
Whether at least one of King Lear’s daughters was having her period.
That’s not in the play, but it should be. I had three pregnancies and my uterus gave up.
One of my grandmothers had eight babies and the other had five,
and both of them lost a child in infancy, clotted names no one repeats.
Whether my Catholic employer covers birth control. You have to say it’s for heavy bleeding.
Just try the rhythm method, a doctor told my 1960s grandmother when she begged for the pill.
Whether this poem is a cycle, a circle. The inside of my uterus is hunter-green, I imagine.
Each fat clot is a pastel dream flower, rooted in sloughable walls.
Whether walls imply a room. What type of room can expand and contract?
Whether my congresswoman passed a fetal remains bill. What the fuck is her problem?
She is a holy-rolling evangelical, pious-faced woman and I don’t even believe in god.
This poem is getting too political. In dreams, I pick the brindled puppy
from the litter, but I don’t like dogs, their wild, percussive barks.
Whether I eat an iron-rich diet to replace the lost blood. I better.
I like to float on my back in a large, cold bay and dream about quietude.
Where are the tall, hunter-green pines fringing the harbor?
Whether the bay gulls fly in a low circle above my womanish form.
When they open their beaks, bouquets of pastel flowers ascend into the spheres.