SELF-PORTRAIT AS WIRE SCULPTURE BY RUTH ASAWA

 

My belly is globular like an onion
My neck is skinny like a leek
My areolae are wide as solar eclipses
My skin is the chain mail my fetus wears

Sunlight trickles through the mesh of me
I am so insubstantial
my shadow on the wall
is equal in every way to my being

O maternity hospital, I’m coming!
I shiver like a Slinky on the stairs
contracting and expanding by turns

I shall have 24 babies
12 round and 12 square
so I can play checkers with them