Self portrait as angelica

The hem of this dress is a secret
until someone sleeps beside it—
doesn't touch. A secret
like the old songs the earth-
worms recall in their trudging.
Tireless making and remaking
the soil, the undergarments, the womb.
Tireless the untying of knots,
belly of white pearls, a kind
of remembering. As if
the land knew the answer. As if
there was a question.
When I walked my feet left
red behind me—bloodletting
a root system, ankles
more like stems to bloom from—
branch-like, grasping. Singing
in the rubied dark. Singing.

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Audrey Gidman is a queer poet living in central Maine. Her poems can be found or are forthcoming in époque press, FEED, Anti-Heroin Chic, Ogma Magazine, and elsewhere. She received her BFA from the University of Maine Farmington and her chapbook, body psalms, winner of the Elyse Wolf Prize, is forthcoming from Slate Roof Press.