Eve, within

By Nadine Ellsworth-Moran

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We move into reclining butterfly, hold,
as fibers lengthen, blood travels
through unlocked joints. My yoga instructor
says emotions are held in the hips,
perhaps she means sockets, but I think you

abide in my bone. I close my eyes, hear singing
bowls hum to themselves as I run my fingertips
across my Iliac crest that rims the wing of ilium, 
feel you there, engraved tenderness, 
our words whispered & preserved—     

scrimshaw. Eve may have risen from rib, 
but I rose from the hard slope that protects
what is vital, sacred. Starry sentiment does
not bind us, it is tendon and muscle--the iliopsoas
taught with memory, too deep to see, too entwined
to free—I rise and stretch my limbs. 

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Nadine Ellsworth-Moran lives in Georgia where she serves full time in ministry. She has a passion for writing and is fascinated by the stories of the modern South unfolding all around her as she seeks to bring everyone into conversation at a common table. Her essays and poems have appeared in Rust+Moth, Calla Press, Theophron, Interpretation, Ekstasis, Thimble, The Windhover and Kakalak, among others.  She shares her home with her husband and four unrepentant cats.