Ann Hudson

Lockdown, Menopause (Day 80)

Maybe it’s stress.  Or maybe my last egg 
dropped eighty days ago, careening down 
the slope of my Fallopian tube the way 
my sister on new rollerskates crouched 
at the top of the driveway, and in a moment  
tipped over the crown of the hill, then  
gathered speed, her shaggy hair flapping  
behind her, until she tumbled at the bottom 
and scraped her knees, her arm, the side  
of her face, and it was that screaming  
that brought my mom and me outside  
to see what was wrong, a girl with a mouth  
of blood and gravel, her wheeled feet  
kicking the ground, and me gripping  
the doorframe of the house, not sure 
how to move forward, not sure 
how to move back.  

Ann Hudson (she/her) is the author of The Armillary Sphere (Ohio University Press) and Glow (Next Page Press), a chapbook on radium.  Her poems have appeared in Cider Press Review, Orion, Crab Orchard Review, Colorado Review, North American Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere.  She is a senior editor for Rhino, and teaches at a Montessori school in Evanston, Illinois. Twitter: @annhuds