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Janet Sutherland
all the junk
a small dark grass snake
ringed with a cream collar
is coiled with slow worms
in the space behind the tipped
up paving slabs this is where
salvaged wood from skips from
the street from the sea leans
against a corrugated shed
with scraps of plastic bag raddled
carpet bottle caps crushed empty
pots it’s here the dark comes in
out there the quince transplanted
at the wrong time of the year
opens a hundred blushed slack
petals wide onto its fragile leaves
Cicatrice
spreading her legs
the labia minora
opened like a bud
the clitoris
is easy to excise
a penknife will do it
roughen the inner edges
of the labia majora
tie her knees and thighs
haemorrhage shock
septicaemia fever
types I to III in pictures
document how much is altered
how much cut
and what is sewn with gut or thorn
or held abraded till the scar
can form
how tissue thin it is
at first
the female element
how dangerous
urinary and rectal fistula
on a dirt floor or in a doctor’s offices
woman to woman
down the matrilineal line
these secret lacerations
type 1V (not pictured)
gathers all the rest
like pricking of the clitoris
with pins or narrowing the opening
with herbs or other harmful substances
one hundred million women
three million girls each year
infertility still birth
“they pulled my legs apart”
“four strong women
held me down”
and I’m reminded how we used to go
into the pen at home
I’d hold a six week calf against the wall and he
with burning iron
would press against the growing tips of horn
disbudding them
cysts abscesses open wounds
her monthly blood backs up
and exits drop by drop
when asked she says her urine flow is
“normal”
the question is rephrased – how long to urinate?
“15 minutes, normal”
is what she says
pelvic infections UTI
then there’s the second cut
her husband on their wedding night
must cut her to consume
to consummate
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