I was sitting in a room next to the operating theatres
and a nurse went past with your uterus inside a transparent plastic bag
Your uterus, my first home and my brothers’
still dripping blood
A small building all made of stone
with dividing walls of brick and hydraulic lime
and windows opening to the valley
With your uterus
With the memory of leavened bread and your long skirt sprinkled with flour
With the memory of an egg yolk
With your uterus
With the memory of shoes that were too tight
With the memory of the chalk and the coal-iron and the stitches
In my soul before the first fitting
With your uterus
With the memory of a Christmas Eve with sugar and cinnamon bread and rice pudding
And the waters which suddenly flooded the kitchen floor
With the troubled memory of those waters
With your uterus
With the memory of an explosion of mimosas
With the memory of the orange flower scent and the neroli
With your uterus
Which the anatomo-pathologist would soon be slicing
With a scalpel’s blade.