Megan Cartwright: ‘Matryoshka’ and ‘Communion’

Matryoshka

Babushka conceals the crystalised foetus
of her unborn twin, painted doll,
nestled one within the next.

Their lashes, the legs of an orb weaver,
conspiring to wink.
Their skirts, inked in scarlet-slicked gouache,

blood-bright, coffin-tight, and made to measure.
The treasure, turned from a single piece of wood—
womb entombing womb—

stay small, Mishka-bear.
Make yourself miniscule, breath held,
against the night.

Megan Cartwright

Communion

You enter the world as an act of violence,
slapped scarlet, drawing down the air in
great gulps, choking on the shock of pesticides.
Fight to hold your breath—lungs blooming
mottled mauve and indigo, impossible to contain.

You are in the world, acclimated to sharing air.
The nights are thick, a rhythmic respiration that
taunts your mother. She slumps over a pump,
milk-slick, its ceaseless whirr and click are
somehow louder than her tears.

And soon your own child eats the world,
a catastrophic blessing you calved, lowing.
She sucks in oxygen, releases it as dragon’s breath.
The flames raze forests and charcoal skeletons bud
luminous green amongst their cracks.

Your mother releases the world with a sigh.
The ripened musk of bodies, dairy-potent,
floods the hospice, fills your nostrils and
your breath cannot be caught, lest it crumple.
The air is neither yours, nor hers, to take.

Megan Cartwright