Vox Populi
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Michael Simms: Meconium
A few days after my daughter was born she passed the last stool of meconium, a viscous dark tar, olive-green, shaped like a flower, odorless, composed of what she digested in the womb: epithelial cells of her own intestine, lanugo, mucus, bile and of course amniotic fluid, the womb-water where she floated dreaming of God. Wiping her, I felt at first disgusted, as if I were cleaning up after my dog but then I remembered this is my daughter and this dark tar is her mother’s womb still clinging so it is sacred, the way soil clinging to the seed of a new shoot pushing out of the earth is sacred, the seed somehow understanding its joyful task. My new daughter laughed for the first time at the small pleasure of passing waste made pure by the loving hands of a man who suddenly thinks Holy Shit
From Nightjar by Michael Simms. Copyright 2021.
Michael Simms is the founding editor of Vox Populi. His collections of poems include Nightjar (2021) and American Ash (2020), both published by Ragged Sky Press, Princeton.
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What a gorgeously, beautiful, moving and touching shitty poem, friend.
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Hahaha. Thanks, Laure-Anne. Yes, some shit is sacred.
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You stuck the landing, Michael. Perfect, and perfectly awesome!
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Thanks, Dinah!
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talk about nailing the end. well done
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Thanks, Abby. As we know, some shit is holy. Some shit is unholy.
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Still smiling. Yay!
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Thanks, Rose Mary!
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Yep. Holy Shit!
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Love this.
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Thanks, Arlene. Your support means the world to me.
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Holy Shit, Michael!
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Indeed!
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This is so good. At least I think so after reading it only a few times. I’ll get back to you next month, maybe in the Spring. Bravo, Brutha.
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Thanks!
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