Poetry by Kate MacAlister

      Sarah Horrigan CC





|FEN| eclipse

         the fern lies still tonight. I feel her eyes from above             the gloaming the inside of a crater
where I once dug for shelter   (from the ghosts I kept in jam jars and released under your breath).    
away, from the lost nightlights I wade slower than death, cottonweed tangled at my ankles. They
said not to come here    after dark         here I lie still upon the heather, heathenbed. the song
comes from inside my chest, a prayer, a prayer on the skin                             
                (remains, o deliver me - I want to say it’s serene- not that it’s… knocking. crawling. endearing) tonight,
she listens. she descends and touches my hair with silver fingertips and I hear her growl and
chant to my bloods. I turn I turn  she is full. gorged. 
the light of a million eyes. I take her into my breath, my mouth, my arms. a blush on her
withered skin I cradle her all along the boardwalk the shadows blossom
and the sphagnum weeds stir in abeyance                                          (like a vow  I was holy once you held me)     
                we have forgotten to shape her names - she whispers every myth of  the olden ways 
to me  all the way home into the bathwater —I try to make some waves for her or build a nest
from my bones she is restless 
and pushes, pulls; I almost swallowed her hatching a new darkness. beginning to bleed, we lie still
​tonight and begin again tomorrow.

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a state:
 complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

        abortion is healthcare    abortion is many formations of love     abortion is the unhinging 
of systems, the rendering of rising  abortion is justice      we give    each other    abortion is spilling
    the altarwine in a burning cathedral       abortion is common, also for mothers                   maybe
    abortion is what Mary would have wanted. abortion is simple, a few pills | one  aspiration   
   one constant act of solidarity    essential medicine        abortion is tender, service        open to
​                                                                                     transmutation 
                     abortion is gender affirming                     abortion is seafoam, a turn of the tide
                                               life affirming care                 abortion is a cross in the calendar   abortion 
is a ritual abortion is a hum before the fogs lifts at dawn                            abortion is consideration, 
  a magnifying glass.      abortion is the lock & the key inside a snowglobe              abortion is okay!
                                                                             really. totally  valid.
    abortion is a waiting room without chairs      abortion is a restless day      abortion is whispering
a name until the lights come back on  abortion is hands within hands: safe and warm         
                     abortion is accumulated connection, resources   abortion is a soft storm, unfurled rain
                     is a prayerlaugh               abortion is french toast when the anaesthetic wears off
                abortion is a throat crowded with silence\words abortion is a story we decide to tell


                                                                                                   differently:
                                                                                           abortion is classwar
                                                                                         abortion is resistance 
                                                                                    abortion is bending the law
                                                                                                 until it breaks.

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Kate MacAlister is a poet, medic and feminist activist. Kate is  the founder of the multilingual community arts and literature project Stimmen der Rebellion/Dengê Berxwedane/Voices of Rebellion. She has studied Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School under the tutelage of Carol Ann Duffy and is now pursuing a PhD at the University of Nottingham working on a collection focusing on the female body as antipatriarchal resistance. She has  been published  with two full-length collections of feminist poetry, available at Querencia Press and Sunday Mornings at the River Press.
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