My Snatch Is Pretty Good
If you hear pussy when I say snatch, either
you belong to my cabal of weightlifting poet yogis,
or you’re my mother, snatch the frequent star
of her dirty jokes. As explanation all I have
is that her father was a Marine with a vodka IV
who told home health to blow it out of their asses.
Hip! – we called him Hip – when I think of him,
I think of suicide – I saw how his eyes roved for that pistol,
and in my fear imagined a froth of blood pinking his undershirt
the exact color of the tank top I now wear to the gym,
which claims, in girly script, My Snatch Is Pretty Good.
An understatement, and a double entendre if you know
that in addition to vajayjay, snatch also refers
to that olympic lift in which the barbell, with one pull,
travels from the ground to overhead. Because I’m giddy
with the miracle of speed and kilo math,
and my bouncing plates are so loud that other lifters
look my way--that’s why I giggle when I hit a snatch.
But also because of my mom, who reminds me, even now,
when I screw up, to check myself because I used to live
“in her snatch.” Considering our history,
I knew she would laugh at my tank top
and the bumper sticker version I bought for her
because I’m proud of all my women,
bad ass, indelicate broads, and me the same,
in a full squat bearing down with 60 kilos overhead,
the sweet spot where I find my balance.
I have felt a midwife’s intimacy with other lifters,
our tribe gathered around the platform
as though awaiting a birth, only it’s the barbell
we are waiting on, waiting for it to move,
willing with our minds, helping with yells if one
among us is buried under a squat, grinding to stand.
But it is the lifter who does all of the work,
as in birth it is the mother, alone and watched,
all eyes on her, on her snatch, vortex from which
daughters and sons emerge and unfold,
each of them a bloodied lotus, and the mother--
well, when it was me, I was stunned, amazed,
as with a personal best on the barbell. What the hell
just happened? How did I do this?
Is there no end to my strength?
ξ
“My Snatch Is Pretty Good” first appeared in Tin House. It will appear in Pelegrin’s next collection, Our Lady of Bewilderment, forthcoming from LSU Press in 2022.
Alison Pelegrin is the author of four poetry collections, including Our Lady of Bewilderment, which is forthcoming from LSU Press in 2022. The recipient of fellowships from the NEA and the Louisiana Division of the Arts, she lives in south Louisiana, where for a few weeks each spring, wisteria rains purple on the lawn.
Relish: An Internet Archive is a twice-monthly column featuring poems, stories, and essays that were first published in print literary magazines and journals but have no former presence online. This initiative strives to disseminate more excellent writing to a wider audience. To submit to this column, please read our submission guidelines.