two poems: on the morning of my colposcopy / the territory you’re looking for has no map by V. S. Ramstack

​on the morning of my colposcopy

the rain began at 4:36 a.m. i had been dreaming about a way to get everything done - in this, just a list of mundanities, mostly shuffling papers into piles and screaming at my hands for not working like they used to.

i, woman destroyed, & simone de beauvoir: seated on the table behind my head, all together swimming - we were waiting for the inevitable snip of tissue. under a microscope, what do i look like? what do i look like with the sunlight trailing across my arm? my whole and my parts, skin sucking in and promptly spitting out.
​
i think about ladybird beetles, the infestation in my parents’ old house when i toured it for the first time. the landlord said a quick poison would do. but i saw their eyes, the pockets of red coalescing in the door frames and along the window latches, drinking each other’s wings as i stood above them.

​the territory you’re looking for has no map

sand, pine, baby gnat wings
stuck in the corner of her eye
subtle swab of cotton
to wipe it clean

shaved her head beneath
a halogen lamp, dust-soaked fan
heaving with static, feeding and
whirring the forgotten cells

she dreamt of riding her bike through
five states, water bottle kept
between her legs, a sharp 45-degree angle
maybe a few drops for the snails

took to a trail, 172 miles in and collapsed
in a bush outside of Oatman, Arizona
a donkey shuffled by, clattering hoof
a silky buzz of lost adrenaline

if she gets up, feet a revered tool,
she’ll see the bike resting deep
in a patch of desert marigold
tracfone cracked, 12 prepaid minutes left

sticks her hand in the side-leg pocket:
a gum wrapper, bike key, a loose nug
another donkey in her periphery,
what could she make from this?
​
a fly lives on her eyelid for one minute
and lives the rest of its 38,000 minutes
elsewhere, like it knew the body
would have to go home

​V. S. Ramstack

 is a Pisces, a selective extrovert, and an avid crier. Besides poetry, she enjoys cats, flowers, and checking out too many books at the library. She received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago. Previous work can be found in Columbia Poetry Review, Night Music Journal, Curator Magazine, Oxidant | Engine, and Posit.