Katie Thorp
You are all futility and blind greed—
insubstantial, yet taking up space.
Making me bleed
money to pay pink taxes and
repent of original sin.
You’re assigned to collect eggs
like a supermarket shelf—
but some slovenly stock girl sleeps
as the biological clock tick-tocks on
and the sun rises and sets.
Poor management, I hiss.
Idle hands are the devil’s playground
so unseeing hormones race vainly around—
numbing me,
provoking me,
naming me,
transforming me,
Into what?
In our early days,
I imagined you effective—
prodding you off your ghostly ass.
Because mythology haunted me—
taught me that you would wake
and I should dream
of immaculate conception—
of Sarah’s miracle.
We are of woman born.
But if woman cannot bear,
is she woman? What is her worth?
Voices and social constructs rattle
between synapses and membranes.
Mother gives teenage daughter the usual talks
with the usual expectations.
Curfews and consent—birds and bees.
We do not yet let ourselves wonder
what to do–—
What to do with this useless energy—lost profit and spilled ink?
What to do with your purposeless lethargy?
There’s a ghost-baby
that each baby girl is
conditioned to carry.
Fully grown, I wake—
lay my ghost to rest
and redirect creation’s flow—
write a new story.
Katie Thorp
Katie Thorp (she/they) is a non-binary poet whose writing is grounded in feminism, place, ecology, and family. Katie studied English and poetry at Smith College and her poem, "The Fireman," has been featured by the October Project.