'Levator Ani' from Womens Poetry Group Embrace.

From Pat Fearon of the womens poetry group Embrace, from which member Val Walsh will appear on 26th August at The Nerve Centre with poems and stories, comes the poem 'Levator Ani'. An introduction to the poem is below:

On Saturday, I tried to gather poems according to the theme of Regeneration.  I included four on this process: a woman's regeneration after divorce; then two on the degeneration humankind causes this planet, one locally and one worldwide.  Finally, I offer here, an example of the kind of moves we should all be making, to pre-empt degeneration, that unpopular concept, a combination of preventive medicine and self-help, otherwise known as personal responsibility.  I chose to use humour for this.  Perhaps I should add that the levator ani is the muscle supporting the pelvic floor which helps to prevent incontinence of bowel and bladder.

LEVATOR ANI

She’s standing at the bus stop with that look upon her face:

Absent minded; enigmatic; she’s staring into space.

She’s in another world, you see, of secret exercise.

The muscles of her pelvic floor are tightened till they rise

Then loosened and let fall again, in satisfying sag.

Oh, what a risk she’s taking should those weakened fibres flag!

There’s sympathetic scrunching up, for fear that she might leak,

From all the women here.  You’ll see them tensing as I speak.

She’s serving you a coffee on the café’s counter top

But what goes on behind it is the thing that must not stop.

That enigmatic, absent-minded, introspective stare

Bears all the signs of exercise of Someone’s pelvic floor.

And once you’ve learnt to recognise those secret goings-on

You’ll feel your pelvic muscles rise, your peace of mind quite gone.

So, don’t let it annoy you, as you wait to be admitted

To the station, or the theatre - where e’er they tear a ticket.

If she has that ramrod stiffness and that other-worldly gaze

And you can’t get her attention - her eyes just seem to glaze -

Don’t hesitate to ask her if she’s exercising tension

Upon her pelvic muscles, intending the prevention

Of those Tena Lady moments we all want to evade.

It feels so good to empathise, to share in her crusade.

And perhaps to share your feeling that men should do it too,

To cut down on their tendency to fart and follow through.

The Nerve Centre.