I am not a maiden.
My breasts are full
and heavy, leak onto pure linen
even after I’ve nursed and nursed.
Tutankhamen, you are not a god yet,
though your eyes question the sky.
You gulp and suck and belch
like any infant. Like mine,
who lies beside you waiting his turn.
You both take me for yours, life as your right.
To be alive is to need me.
Tutankhamen, you are not a god yet,
but at last I am a goddess.
___________________
Jennifer A. McGowan won this year’s Prole pamphlet competition; her winning
pamphlet, Still Lives with Apocalypse, is available from Prolebooks. Other collections are
available from Arachne Press (With Paper for Feet), and from the author herself. She is
disabled and lives in Oxford.