Hippolyta Creates Wonder Woman

I dreamed I had a mother
wrapped like a bolt of cloth
and stacked neatly in a drawer
with all the other women
who died under the clenched jaw
of a man’s anger

When I unraveled her
she sat up in her floral nightgown
and embraced me
Her phalanges tapped my shoulder blades
and her skull perched at my shoulder
We said to one another
let us meet again in heaven

I carved my daughter from clay
I shaped and dried her limbs
and tapped them until all the eggs
of generational vengeance spilled out
I gathered them like beads on a string
Next I thought of a woman I admired
and sketched her face with a sharp reed
until I remembered her no more

I whispered into the parallel caverns of her mind
before I attached each glistening ear
I prayed that her skin would repel and attract equally
It quivered until it balanced
like a plane’s wings catching the air

A single unborn soul remained in the pool
viscous as a egg
I slipped it into a bowl
and it gathered under the shadow of my hand
as if to button itself
back to the flesh of its mother
I poured it down her throat and waited
for her stillness to turn to sleep

Meredith McDonough lives and works in St. Louis, MO. Her poems have appeared in Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology, Linebreak, RHINO, Bone Bouquet, Sugar House Review, and elsewhere. She was also a finalist for the Jane Lumley Emerging Artist Award in 2016.