(after Maternity 1946-47, by Dorothea Tanning)
https://www.dorotheatanning.org/life-and-work/view/67/
If only she were barren as
this desert pregnant
with emptiness
not trapped in the open
unable to close the door
that is no door
she faces away from the thing
that has no face the thing
that doesn’t stalk
but waits
with monstrous patience
for her to bear it back into
her abdomen covered in
the shreds of her youth
waits for her to step off
the wrinkled square of silk
while the baby clutches her shoulder
and her dog beseeches us
to pierce the canvas
or enter the scene
Helene Kendler’s poems have appeared in New Letters, Southern Humanities Review, The Manhattan Review, Poetry in Public Places (New York State), The Women’s Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the Theodore C. Hoepfner prize (Southern Humanities Review) and a New York State Council on the Arts CAPS grant. She resides in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley, next to state land, where the bears live.