Housewife as Rumpelstiltskin
By Sara Moore Wagner
It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!
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.
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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