Last modified: February 7, 2026
Phoebe Literature| February 15, 2026| Poetry, Print Issues
FINDINGS: There is a T1 hypointense, T2 hyperintense lesion within the left anterior pituitary. This measures approximately 6 mm coronal by 5 mm sagittal by 7 mm craniocaudal.
The imaging room is black,
the screen is shaped like a womb.
In the doctor’s hand a stem
presses pink blood from my breast like milk.
My heart thunders.
A cyst is a type of pit.
In summer, flecks of spit
soar across the blacktop.
In the distance rolls thunder
as hands plunge into the bowl’s womb.
The ocean foams with milk.
I tie knots with cherry stems.
The doctor pinches the stem,
explains how the pituitary tumor
swells my breasts with infertile milk.
Only worry if the well runs black.
I am sick of this womb
and how it thunders.
My hands thunder
against flesh, harden the stem.
My aching womb condenses
my dreams into a pit I spit
out between my legs, black
rivers, edged in milk.
I’m curdling with milk,
my right breast thunders.
The pits of my eyes, black.
I’m collecting bluestems
while rain fills stone pitchers
with water pink as wombs.
The white cylinder is a womb,
my robe the color of milk.
On the MRI is a cherry pit.
The machine wails in the key of thunder.
My skull the cherry, my spine the stem.
The tones sing silver and black.
A black highway stems through my body.
Cells split like a womb, render mine infertile.
I swallow pills with milk to calm the thunder.
C. E. Janecek is a Czech American writer and editor who holds a poetry MFA from Colorado State University. Janecek’s writing has appeared in Poetry, Sugar House Review, Gulf Coast Journal, Booth, and elsewhere. Online at www.cewritespoems.com.
Last modified: February 7, 2026
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