wildscape. literary journal

Vestige
by Preeti Talwai

I briefly held
two sets of intestines inside me,
as the ultrasound wand skated
across my jelly-glazed womb.
The tech click-clacked crosshairs,
bold white text blinked:
BLADDER. BOWEL. STOMACH.
Letters swallowing 
the organs they named.
When the doctor said all good,
I briefly held a thick, bright faith —
this body might yet be wired for health,
the way bloodhounds nose
where a body once fell,
the way a blind man 
still knows green. 

about the author // Preeti Talwai

Preeti Talwai (she/her) writes from the California coast, where she is also a research executive in the technology industry. Her poetry has appeared in Typehouse, The Dillydoun Review, and Unbroken, among others, and her fiction has been acquired by the Rare Book Collection at U.C. Berkeley. She was trained as a designer and researcher at Yale and UC Berkeley.