I walk into the public restroom
that is covered in wallpaper full
of abstract swirls like the canvases  
of Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler. 
I slide past the infrastructure of doors
and hinges, latches that glitch a little
and often never quite align. And once
I choose my stall and walk inside 
I see a small brilliant red dot 
of blood on the toilet seat. 
A pomegranate seed. A broken 
piece of coral. A tiny slice 
of chili pepper. A dead lady 
bug. A splash of cabernet. 
It of course is none of these. 
The breeze from the hand-dryer 
somehow trains up under the stall. 
It is hot and now this modest space
is even hotter. There is no remedy 
for what happens next. I ping back
to myself, a younger woman. How often I prayed
for blood. How I charted the empire 
of endometrium and eggs. How I knew
that trees assembled their shadows 
just so. And how now I am on the other side
of all such worries. She must have left
in such a hurry. Not to notice 
the ruby dropped in such a public spot. 
I feel close to her, like I know her. 
I shared her fears, maybe her dreams. 
I back out of the stall, never using it.
An automatic sink clicks on
with no one in front of it. 

^{translated from the Galician/Spanish by Samantha Schnee}

There are women who, upon the bright star 
of each twenty-eighth day,
receive a stream of liquidity in their accounts, 
endometrial or financial,
a blessed
            hemorrhage of cash.

I, on the other hand, have
a costly hypothesis:
each menstrual cycle is one of pointless nostalgia—
a broken necklace of infinitesimal un-births
not this one, or this one, or this other one, or that one …
all those cells waiting just to rush
headlong into dying so easily, 
my embryonic failures, I 
build a nest to curl up close with them
I’m left alone and, softly, I whisper to my ovaries:
Couldn’t you               
                       produce
                                  something more useful?

I swallow a pill
and make haste to desecrate myself.

A Roda Da Fortuna

Hai mulleres que, co luceiro de cada día vinte oito,
báixalles un caudal de liquidez ás súas contas,
endometrio ou salario,
unha bendita
                     hemorraxia de billetes.

A min, porén, píngame
unha gravosa hipótese
—cada ciclo menstrual é unha inútil nostalxia—
ábreseme un colar de diminutos abortos
este non, este tampouco, nin este outro, nin este ...
todos eses xermes facendo quenda para precipitarse
intentando morrer e non lles custa
meus embrionarios fracasos, eu
fago un niño para me recostar con eles
quedo a soas e, en baixiño, besbéllolles aos meus ovarios:
non podedes
                         segregar
                                          algo máis produtivo?

Trago unha pastilla
e corro a abusar de min mesma.