Betsy Howard
Full Term, Mid-July
My sundress clings around my middle damp.
A fetus pees inside. But does it sweat?
Today it must. For all the shade my taut
abdomen gives, I know I am set to broil.
I’ve left behind that basal body temp
with modest peaks. Unmitigated heat,
like mother earth, I’m magma at my core.
An outstretched heel imprints my sticky skin
within, to breathe by suffocating me.
Betsy Howard is as an assistant professor of literature at Bethlehem College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and an affiliate researcher with the Center for the Premodern World (Univ. Minnesota). Her recent academic work includes essays in
Religion and the Arts and
Victorian Poetry, and her creative essays have appeared in
Between Two Cities and
Writing in the Margins. Her poems have been published in
Summit Avenue Review and
Tower Light.