Menstrual


Fox doesn’t like underwear, freebleeds

wherever she can. There’s a sensation

of accomplishment when her saturated

curls stink of metal, dyed as in cadmium

red acrylic, pleasure in the yolklike drag

of clots: proof she’s made it through heat again, 

sans consequences. Her womb’s too acrid

to house life, or so she hopes. Anyway

she rarely allows ejaculation,

dislikes the copulatory lock

tying her to a tod for long stretches.

Better to hunker and stride in solitude,

sticky between the thighs,

streaked with war paint.



Born and raised in Santa Cruz, California, Maya Lowy received her MFA in poetry at the University of New Orleans in 2016 and currently lives in Gloucestershire, UK, with her husband and dog. Her work can be found in Bacopa Literary Review, Triggerfish Critical Review, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Infection House, and other publications.