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The Congresswoman’s Brain


05.28.12 Posted in today's words by

Rae Spencer’s most recent poem to appear here was The Waiting Songs, published as part of Contributor Series 9: If Men Had Ears.

The Congresswoman’s Brain
By Rae Spencer

it’s literal now, our interest
fixed on her anatomy

no longer the simple concerns
of platform and policy
her silenced voice representing
this widened constituency

discussing the bullet’s path
in perplexed grief

awed by her survival
and involved, so breathlessly
involved, eager that the hateful
act leave much intact, the wife

and mother parts of her
the independent woman

preserved somewhere
in that swaddle of sterile
bandage, skull in waiting
while the surgeon monitors

her most intimate organ
the unsolved hemisphere of self

violated, prognosis unclear
and our only certainty is shame
for the commonplace violence
we’ve shared too often

morbid details of tissue
and test, the answering gesture

updated hourly for signs
of hope, for progress to suggest
that such a public and fearsome
wound might heal



One Response to “The Congresswoman’s Brain”

  1. bobbie troy says:

    Great poem and great commentary.

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