- Another just two parts from a series from another longer
work, and this one revolves, Hannah
mentioned it in the intro, around anatomical votives
of 2nd century BC, particularly in Central Italy.
Anatomical votives are physical material representations
of body parts dedicated to Saints or gods,
often in things for healing or health.
And I'm particularly interested in material renderings
of wombs, which are often dedicated in things
for fertility or for birth.
And they serve as a kind of emblem
of fulfillment and reciprocation between the human
and the divine.
And so this poem is called "Reliquary",
which is a container for relics or sacred objects.
And it sort of negotiates containment and fulfillment
of prayer, the historical archive, labor, motherhood.
So these are two sections in the voice
of the archivist uncovering the relics,
but as the series goes on there are also
the voices of different mothers, but this is just the archivist.
"Reliquary"
One, the archivist.
It's taken decades to archive all their icons.
The nitrile gloves have cast my hands.
Two stark believers in ritual's accumulation.
I have no answers.
My work is simple.
Haul these terracotta wombs from one tarp to another,
record the cruel history of mercy made touchable.
There are 900 exactly.
I counted them twice.
I surveyed a valley for clay hands,
marble gallstones wrapped in gilded cords.
God only speaks this language of relics to mothers,
huddled in a marble hem, anticipating.
Each womb lipped and glazed, deep grooves
to grip them better, to scale the statue of a saint
and rest a prayer upon her shoulder,
to raise each hollow to a waiting ear.