Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Tuesday, February 16th, 2021.

Today's poem is by a contemporary living poet named Kate Baer.

She has a new book out, which is sold quite well here at our bookstore.

The first three months we've been open. It's called What Kind of Woman?

She was described recently in a vogue.com article,

I want to say back in the fall, as quote, the Instagram poet for people who don't like

Instagram poets, which I enjoy. I find that a funny way to put it. If you follow her on

Instagram at Kate J. Bear, that's B-A-E-R, then you can see a lot of her work,

including many of the poems that are published in What Kind of Woman? And she is a poet who is very

popular among my wife and her friends. And so I suppose I'm dedicating this episode to my wife and to all of the women in our lives that love her work.

Bear's work has been featured in Harper's Bazaar, Entertainment Weekly, Literary Hub, and many other places.

And again, what kind of woman is out now?

You can get it wherever you buy books.

And the poem that I'm going to read today is called Motherload.

This is how it goes.

She keeps an office in her sternum, the flat bone in the center of her chest,

with all its urgent papers, vast appointments, lists of minor things.

In her vertebrae, she holds more carnal tasks, milk jugs, rotten plants, heavy-bottomed toddlers

and all their mortal rage. She keeps frustration in her halics,

senseless chatter, jealous fangs,

the spikes of a dinosaur's tail.

The belly is more complicated,

...