‘Triptych with Missing Limb’
— Hannah Cohen
this rhythm of being trampled by elephants
the empty womb is full of empty children
Do you know what you have? Or don’t? Often times I find myself wondering about how different I would be if I didn’t have what I have, and because of this desire, I like to look for poems that attempt to answer this hypothetical question. ‘Triptych with Missing Limb’ is a poem that nearly knocked the air out of my lungs, made me wish I had come up with such a clever move.
A work in three parts, there’s deliberate moments of domesticity coupled with violence such as “the women come trotting into the oven”. Perhaps the most powerful is the space between lines “we walk towards our shadows / or we break the line” to “the freshly squeezed children”, with that middle stanza empty. A perfect example of the visceral and the visual, ‘Triptych with Missing Limb’ is a promising feat from a young writer.