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2 Poems

By Brenna Womer
Summer 2021 | Poetry

shitty father’s day poem

did you know there’s a species

of male fruit bat that lactates

so the female doesn’t grow

too heavy with milk to fly,

or that flamingos agree on a nesting

site together and equally share

in their eggs’ incubation time;

did you know my father left

a few days after I was cut into the world,

that my mother healed alone while he

was playing keeper at a soccer tournament,

or that my husband was held by his neck

up a wall as a child for being a child,

his father a handsome, devout, christian man.

the male midwife toad gestates

beneath the skin of his back legs,

and others carry offspring, instead,

in the wet of their mouths;

how hard it must be for the busy

new father not to swallow

his eager little tadpoles whole.

al pastor

i imagine

my body

as the lamb

gyro cone

spinning

behind the

counter of

my favorite

greek café

how easy

it would be

to flay apart

in chips

and strips

the seasoned

the sodden

the tender

meat of me

Brenna Womer is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Washington and Lee University. Her work has appeared in North American Review, Indiana Review, DIAGRAM, The Pinch, and elsewhere. She is a Contributing Editor for Story Magazine and the Faculty Advisor of Shenandoah.


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