qweyne wifthing
talk to me about the monstrous
the multiparous body is too porous
margaret beaufort on the other hand
gentlewoman scholar saint & after
three husbands she took a vow of celibacy
what more could be expected of any woman
it feels weird to be alone a devotional
pose I called out sick to write this poem
I turned on paw patrol to write this poem
I look to the whale-path to write this poem
I squint into the yellow angle to write
this poem I speak it into your mouth
I shift my winterbody to write this
poem I write it like parallel play
qweyne wifthing
one royal physician in the hall asked
what her grace had her ladies did not want
to answer only a girl & so they
called out whatsoever the qweyne’s grace hath
here within sure tis a fool that standeth
there without talk to me about the monstrous
the great grand multiparous is too leaky
efficient & experienced uterus
a question about its echotexture
its living ligatures that prevent
hemorrhage & elizabeth of york
another matrix brought to bed on
candlemas gives birth to & dies from her
eighth childbirth eleventh february
qweyne wifthing
elizabeth wydeville on her witchy
knees a sack filled with words she paid the devil
to steal from the mouths of her slanderers
she paid him in honey & hats & lead
figures bound with wire together
the pose is nothing if not devotional
one royal physician in the hall asked
& the gracewyf answered it’s a boy it’s
a boy it’s a girl it’s a girl it’s a girl
it’s a boy it’s a girl it’s a boy it’s a
girl it’s a boy it’s a girl it’s a girl
died a natural death murdered queen died
a teenager lived murdered died an infant
murdered lived died a toddler lived long a nun
qweyne wifthing
margaret beaufort thinks that you are weak
margaret beaufort is disappointed
it’s a long story I’m not getting any
better at telling it margaret
beaufort my patron saint of worrywort
it’s not breaking rocks except when it is
elizabeth wydeville with her witchy
hands clutches her sons under áctreó
gravity does not pull her jowls downward
I’m thinking now about the etymology of jowl
how the old english for throat or gullet
partially merged with the oe for jaw
margaret beaufort your jaw-throat is taut
controlled efficient with worry & wimple
qweyne wifthing
margaret beaufort doughter & heyr
wyff of by whom she had an only child
wyff of wyff of an unambiguous
feminine ending critics who wish to read
this as spoken by a man must misread
the syntax margaret beaufort thinks that
I am weak for the first time in years I
do my hourly offices I get
on my saint’s knees I let my middleaged
hair fall over my private devotions I
pay special attention to the centaur
& the dragon & less to the willowy
saints these days empress faustina beheaded
blindfolded reaching for her crown on her knees
qweyne wifthing
my daughter asked me how babies are made
I told her they’re made when a tudor twice
your age fucks you you’ve got to lean
into it like a volta or a polska
& like a volta which elizabeth
the future will dance with leicester she’ll make
it semi-respectable but not dignified
doughter & heyr keep your dress from flying
up with your left hand & his right hand firm
beneath your busk his left thigh against your right
a busk is a splinter a stiffening
strip that shifts the volta should appear here
tastes like something is on fire in my mouth
where is his body now the relict asks
qweyne wifthing
elizabeth wydeville even after
all those years & children is still surprised
by her husband’s body she makes her body
making future bodies on her witch’s knees
elizabeth wydeville one imagines
moved through life smoothly sought after engaged
her granddaughterthing her goddaughterthing asked
& elizabeth & margaret protected
her treaty body with a slow progress
margaret beaufort eats her supper turned
slightly towards the wall one imagines her
a solitary child too serious the fox
marginal passes through a widow’s yard
where she earns her bread patience & daughters
some notes for qweyne wifthing :
• margaret beaufort on the other hand / gentlewoman scholar saint & after / three husbands she took a vow of
celibacy / what more could be expected of any woman : quotes from & paraphrases Elizabeth Wordsworth on Margaret Beaufort in Glimpses of the Past (1912).
• what her grace had? & the answer the queen’s women gave the physician come from Agnes Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England (1867).
• “an unambiguous feminine ending, suggesting that the speaker is a woman. Critics who wish to read the poem as a monologue spoken by a man have to emend or re-evaluate the syntax of these lines.” Gloss on line 1 of “The Wife’s Lament.” http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/oecoursepack/wifeslament/
Pattie McCarthy is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Quiet Book from Apogee Press. She was a Pew Fellow in 2011. She is currently an NTT associate professor at Temple University. The sequence ‘qweyne wifthing’ is forthcoming as a chapbook from eth press.