wildscape. literary journal

Hysterectomy
by Allison Carol Schmocker

From Greek hustera ‘womb’ + English -ectomy
A surgical operation to remove all or part of the uterus

When a baby is born, it is often after hours of laboring.
Always the mother is breathless and emptied.
Always there is blood.

	Somewhere there is a baby crying.
	I can hear it echo in the vents. 

When the doctor told me the news, it was
after months of bleeding, a never-ending tide.

	Somewhere there is a baby crying.
	I can hear it down the hallway.

When they removed the broken thing, it was
after hours of cutting away tissue growing 
in the wrong place. 

	Somewhere there is a baby crying.
	I can hear it through the walls.

When my body had recovered, it didn’t feel
whole. Maybe it was missing the damaged thing
or something I’ll never make.

	Somewhere the baby I’ll never have is crying
	in a room without doors or windows.

When my lover calls me baby, I learn words
have different meanings. 

	Somewhere the baby I’ll never have is crying 
	for me.

When I sleep, I am the one round and heavy.
I can’t tell if I am complete or just no longer hungry.
It feels too real. This time I am the one crying.

	Somewhere my baby is crying,
	and when I reach for it, it is taken
	away with the wind, like a whisper.

When I say hysterectomy, it is after a story
of my failing body. I don’t want kids anyway, I say
And it’s true. Most of the time. 

A Lovely Crash
by Allison Carol Schmocker

when i was a kid, my mother
would pull us onto the front 
porch for every storm. we 
would sit in bundles of 
tangled limbs and baby blankets 
just out of reach 
of the rain and watch our small
world light up with a camera flash
as thunder would clap around us 
like a lovely crash. windows shaking, 
rain-soaked screen doors, our small 
world came alive.

my tiny fists wrapped around paper
doll limbs, knees on the living room rug 
when the tree fell across the window
just missing the front porch swing on
which we spent every humid, muggy
moment. i remember crying when we 
counted seconds between thunder cracks
and crying when the tree cracked in two.
it was the first storm I remember not being 
pulled out into by my mother. it was the
first time i remember my parents fighting.

clouds bleach the sky for an entire day 
while the air hangs thick with 
anticipation and longing. my 
mother is on the other end of a cell 
phone predicting the weather by the 
way the leaves turn.
i am a child again sitting on 
my couch looking out the open window
at a storm approaching 
from the west, dampening the wind
and blanketing the sky in darkness. 

when the weight becomes too much, 
there is flooding and scared pets and 
leaves just begging to stay 
on the trees, and winds taking Chicago
building apart. i watch it come down and 
feel at home in its cacophony.
i know this chaos and am at peace within it.
my mother has taught me peace when the 
world has come undone. 

i lie on my bed, washed in the 
crisp post-storm air, the pavement like
wet cheeks in the aftermath, and
feel myself wrapped in baby blankets, 
skinny legs dangling off the porch swing, 
and hear my mother counting. one, two,
three, four. and i am home.

about the author // Allison Carol Schmocker