A grinding in your stomach, deeply felt,
beneath the fleshy dunes your mother said
would have been considered beautiful
in the late 1400s.

        You rise and fall
with the bars on your lover’s stereo.
He hitches your wool skirt and ignores
the hot tears that tour your face and make you
think of your Renaissance sisters,
stroked into existence.

          We girls,
we bleeding, breathless girls, taking
dumb solace in the fact our bodies
have a long history, are politically charged,
and would’ve been considered beautiful
in the late 1400s.

        When it’s over
you roll onto your stomach, inspect yourself
with a period eye, and look to the site
marked by tepid blots.

Image: ‘Stereo’ / flickr

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