Housewife as Rumpelstiltskin

By Sara Moore Wagner

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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I stomp my foot into the ground, 
one, two, three, and the earth breaks 
open like an egg. The viscous plastic 
mantle, liquid, and I shake, shake, 
shake, tectonic. Because you knew my name, 
because you named me, I’m torn
in two, or I tear myself 
in two, as some versions say. 
But haven’t I always been split
between this world and my body, between 
mother and father, between 
sky and the center diamond 
of this tiny planet: Diastasis 
Recti. At night, I dance 
around a fire chanting, “you will never 
know me,” and by fire, I mean 
the kitchen table I clear 
into the empty trashcan, by dance 
I mean conform to it. I thought 
I was spinning this gold to weave 
something beautiful, an elaborate wing, 
thin and strong as chitin, sparkling 
in the summer, handspun; but here 
I am, caught now, trickster now, 
and with both my hands, I’ll show you
what to do. 

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Sara Moore Wagner is the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award, and the author of the chapbooks Tumbling After (forthcoming from Red Bird Chapbooks, 2022) and Hooked Through (2017). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals including Beloit Poetry Journal, Rhino, Sixth Finch, Waxwing, The Cincinnati Review, and Nimrod, among others. Find her at saramoorewagner.com.

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