Migration – Taylor Hamann Los

Movement of heron and cell—
          strange how a word can carry both.

Even stranger how a woman’s body
          learns to carry: soft pull against her insides

that pulls until it ends in violence
          the way a fairy tale ends in something broken.

Were the women of the old stories
          ever this afraid? When I say cervix,

do I mean neck or uterus?
          One day, I’ll say one and mean

the other. I know
          what my body’s supposed to be for.

If fear is sharp, then I have
          given my neck to the guillotine.

That strange lure of flight— 
          to wing across a gunmetal sky.

If this is a story, then in it,
          some women grow wings.

Taylor Hamann Los is an MFA student at Lindenwood University. Her poetry has appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, perhappened, Split Rock Review, and Rust + Moth, among others. She lives with her husband and two cats in Wisconsin. You can find her on Twitter (@taylorhamannlos), Instagram (taylorhlos_poetry), or at taylorhamannlos.wordpress.com.