(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.