never ask me to perform that part of the ceremony again

sleep by pressing a tiny button

to take away the pricking pains of the side

the green toothache

all blue spots or marks that happen therein

to take away the loathing 

and leave it in the long catalogue of neglected commonplaces

spend an hour at an open window

wringing a cloth

sap of the former root

the broadest leaf:

a bandage applied

whir-r-r-r-r 

the seed is ripe

shows itself possessed 

awakened thoroughly

ears ajar

whir-r-r-r-r

it spreads itself

rising from the middle

a new development

whir-r-r-r-r

whir-r-r-r

slipped on and off a hundred times a day

it becomes second nature

a symphony

a radical harmony

(a substitute for mother)

when successful

a vital force prevails

strange and unusual

fresh coloured veins running through it

great spreading branches

that happen in the eyelids

_{Footnote: this poem was created using the Found texts constraint as the starting point. The found texts are the ‘Women Here and There’ column in the New York Times (1857–1922); John Bascom’s Lecture X, ‘Things That Mislead Taste’ in Aesthetics, or the Science of Beauty (1862); and an extract from Nicholas Culpeper’s The Complete Herbal (1652).}