"Unexpected"
Examined Life Journal
Issue 5.2, Spring 2017
(posted with permission)
Unexpected
They wheeled my mother
to the table under the lights,
sliced her open only to find,
in her womb,
a furled girl
the size of a plum,
translucent eyelids
too fragile to block
the blinding white.
The doctors pinched
my mother’s flaps of skin
together, stitched a hasty row
of x’s, washed their hands
of it all, left
me to swirl
in the murky sac,
heartbeat as faint
as a foxglove’s bell.
Examined Life Journal
Issue 5.2, Spring 2017
(posted with permission)
Unexpected
They wheeled my mother
to the table under the lights,
sliced her open only to find,
in her womb,
a furled girl
the size of a plum,
translucent eyelids
too fragile to block
the blinding white.
The doctors pinched
my mother’s flaps of skin
together, stitched a hasty row
of x’s, washed their hands
of it all, left
me to swirl
in the murky sac,
heartbeat as faint
as a foxglove’s bell.
LINKS to ONLINE POEMS
"Musician's Focal Dystonia"
JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association
May 16, 2017
"Bodies Revealed Exhibition"
Intima
Fall 2018static1.squarespace.com/static/54bc1287e4b09cb81d8d8439/t/5bccb6629140b756452345cc/1540142691463/Bodies+Revealed+Exhibition+Joanna+White+FALL+2018+INTIMA+POEM.pdf
"Pockets" and "Bones"
Sheila-Na-Gig
March 2020
"Two-Way Mirror"
West Texas Literary Review 2018
"What to Do About Winter (Broadside: art by Katie Nealis)
The Michigan Poet
"To the Story Girl"
"Duet"
Dunes Review 2017
"Musician's Focal Dystonia Letters"
Hospital Drive 2017
"The Nacirema"
Intima, Fall 2015
"Masks"
KYSO Flash
Winter 2015
Link to Interview with Joanna White
Brilliant Books in conjunction with Dunes Review