natalie Eleanor Patterson
Portrait of the Body
with No Punchline
Natalie Eleanor Patterson
Portrait of
the Body
with No Punchline
—Lucia LoTempio
Start here: If a tree falls in the forest, is a girl still a hole?
If there is nothing to fill it, does it still make a sound?
Can you fear for something other than your body?
Is the fear less lovely if it lives somewhere else?
Where, for that matter, do you live?
In the Middle Ages, it was thought that the female
supplied the matter of the child, the male the form.
From the woman, the baser elements of conception.
The beauty happens somewhere else.
You are an inversion of a more beautiful thing—
a hole, hidden. In you, there is a tree. If it falls,
do you become a crater in yourself, a void where black water rushes in?
Can you drown, then, in your own body?
Natalie Eleanor Patterson is a poet, editor, and instructor from Atlanta, Georgia, with an MFA in poetry from Oregon State University. She is the author of the chapbook, Plainhollow (Dancing Girl Press, 2022), and the editor of Dream of the River (Jacar Press, 2021), and has work featured in Sinister Wisdom, CALYX, South Florida Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She has received awards in poetry from Salem College as well as Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations. She is Managing Editor of Jacar Press, an editor for One magazine, and a reader for the Julie Suk Award. She is currently pursuing her PhD in poetry. You can find her at poetnatalie.com.
Featured in:
Red Rock Review
Issue 54