Home > PRISM Online > “To the End of Redaction” by Anna Lee-Popham – 1st Runner-Up of the Pacific Poetry Prize 2021

To the End of Redaction

In the end the news suggests stories for women over forty with big data
then tells quiet predictions about the future of the weather in the end
your big data diverts death to other nations you are only an aggregate
only epidemiological you hush small concerns in your body, a vast trove

of mobile evidence the news knows your records are meticulously genuine
the people who see your health and your passwords will want to marry
your children in the end they don’t care about your oxytocin some say
your hemorrhoids are no big secret to pharmaceuticals to news in the end

your privacy is stale and rigid and tepid you scream into the mouths
of people singing and your throat edges raw in the end your failed throat might
be covid or forest fires red and bleeding and you forget your throat
is not only your throat and you forget to say your name in the end the news

tells you to ride a woman’s body like it’s a view and you look down
at the ridges and loose rivers of your hips and your lips and your anchor.