something 

i had a dream they took out my uterus
& handed it to me.
it was an ornate vase
& i asked, "what am i supposed 
to do with this?"
& the doctor shrugged
he was in a suite & tie &
had lavender gloves
he suggested i use it to collect something.
i stuck my hand in deep to see 
if there was already anything in there,
found a ring i lost maybe four years ago
& i wondered how it got there.
silver claddagh waiting
scraping up against the glass 
lining of the vase.
it had something to do with hope, 
i think a uterus does even if you 
take it out 
& discover it's 
a shoe box or an urn or a vase.
i tried other items, starting
with buttons, snipping them off
all my clothes so that i would
have more. clear buttons, black buttons,
brown buttons, red buttons, all of them
inside the vase, i thought they might
transform, i thought that might 
be the point of the strange object
but nothing happened. i slept 
holding the vase & imagining
what it was like inside me
what kind of objects it hungered for.
i talked it, i told the vase that
i was sorry this was how 
everything had to happen. 
i bought flowers after flowers
to let sprout from the vase's mouth:
lilies, carnations, roses
& i'd keep asking 
the uterus, "are you happy?"
but the vase wouldn't respond.
emptying out the greenish stem-water 
left over from the flowers 
i stuck my hand in again
only this time i felt an ache
in my chest as i did, a kind of 
phantom connection, a hand under skin.
i wept, it was something about hope
for something; a hand searching
under skin for lost objects,
the ring like a kind of opening
for beetles or other insects
to crawl through. i was scared 
it might always be like this
if i kept the thing around.
i had to  break it.
no, not in the driveway or the street,
a push from the counter in the kitchen
where all glasses & plates 
will eventually shatter.
the pieces on the floor like 
teeth of an unknown monster.
i apologized to the uterus
as i cleaned up its pieces.
i took a bowl from the cupboard 
& began filling it with buttons
out of habit or maybe
some kind of hope. from the buttons 
grew the stems of flowers,
only the stems.