Katie Piper

Leaves look like they were almost autumn for a moment. Most are pocked with black scars, as if cigarettes have been stubbed out and the ash has coagulated in their papery veins.  My fingers feel gritty–that’s what they said to me last time, ‘your placenta is gritty’ –and so I felt the shame of geriatric pregnancy, as if I had a rheumatoid uterus, or bulbous eggs at 40. My own brutality has come out of season, and , I keep searching, even though I won’t find what I’m looking for. It’s one of those days, and I can only see…