The Woman

The Woman
by David Meikeljohn

Like the woman who finds work manufacturing prosthetic limbs on an assembly line and enjoys it until losing her right forearm to the clamping gears. Like the woman who buys two pairs of shoes because her two left feet require two left shoes. Like the woman who supports herself by selling her hair to wig shops, who develops breast cancer, who loses her hair to radiation therapy, who is awarded three million dollars from her insured hair claim, citing “damage to labor properties.”

Like the woman who is dyslexic and says “moo” when she meditates and “cuff em” when she’s horny. Like the woman who sculps with paper bags, and both fears and adores her striking juxtapositions of machinery with small children. Like the woman who misses the hand her dog bit off, so doctors attach pinchers by surgically removing two of her toes and grafting them to where her fingers used to be, creating appendages she calls “tingers.” Like the woman who grows roses in a darkroom, who develops film underwater, and who skinnydips in a garden. Like the woman who smiles but isn’t happy, who works but isn’t wealthy, who drinks but isn’t addicted, who loves her husband but isn’t alone.