Theater
Menopause, The Dream
I had a dream about my genitals
sliding out like a piece of chewing gum
Plop into a toilet’s swampy waters
Imagine my surprise as I stood there
Naked since my underwear had been complex
Necessary to remove and my dress
The organdy layers fanning up at me
Laughing from a hook at my face looking
Down at the pink fallen flesh floating there
Weighty and then the automatic flush.
Saving myself the way one would do
I reached down and caught it held it in my hand
Washed it off in the sink patted it dry
I thought it would be easy to fit back in
That it would click into place settle
Like my diaphragm behind a bone
But what I couldn’t tell was which was the front
Which was the back and where did it really go?
Details I would certainly soon remember
So I wrapped it up in toilet paper
Put it in my purse and dressed without it
Returning to the party flushed unsexed
Invisible clutching my purse in a crowd
I wandered around drinking cheap champagne
Trying to find a doctor I could ask
If this was something I should have expected
I wanted a scientific answer
No one had warned me not even my mother
The queen of menopause goddess of the change
- Someday your genitals will just drop down
You could be anywhere so be prepared
I carry an airtight container with me
Just in case and darling you should as well
It happens anytime after forty one -
She could have offered practical advice
I would have accepted it with grace and poise
Hot flashes thinning hair fallen genitals
- Your most creative time - is all she had said
menopause and the mystery was for me
To discover like sex something beautiful
The way she had described it when I was eight
Sex that was now in my purse with lipstick
And car keys credit card receipts money
Items I may have lost or forgotten
Stolen borrowed reclaimed
Contributor
Coleman HoughCOLEMAN HOUGH lives in Brooklyn. She wrote the screenplay for Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal. "Menopause, The Dream" is an excerpt from her monologue, Vanishing Point.
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