Holly Melgard

“La connaissance poétique nait le grand silence de la connaissance scientifique.”
–Aimé Césaire, “Poésie et Connaissance”

““Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge.”
–Aimé Césaire, “Poetry and Knowledge”

So, you know how scientists recently discovered that the mycelium fungus is basically the internet of trees? (They found that the mycelium’s web-like network under the forest floor transfers information between plants by serving as the connective tissue between root systems such that it enables trees to communicate with each other.)

Well, what if the candida fungus that grows in the human vagina is the internet of uteruses?

It would explain a lot about how periods synchronize, which scientists have yet to explain. I have this friend who every time I hang out with them, no matter what time of the month, I end up getting my period within 24 hours or less. For this reason, I call them a “red bully” both to their face and behind their back. I wouldn’t need to call them this if it weren’t true.

I’ll bet this happens because when our uteruses get together in the same room, the spores of their candida start broadcasting the false message that “the uterus is menstruating” to my candida, until they mirror that broadcast and word spreads to my uterus the false consensus that “the uterus is menstruating” like some kind of Cronenbergian fake news. I’ll bet that’s why I always catch my period whenever I go over to their house.

I asked my friend who is a gynecologist whether I’m right, and she said it’s possible, so…

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HOLLY MELGARD is the author Fetal Position (Roof 2021) and Read Me: Selected Works (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2023). Prior to this, she co-founded and co-edited Troll Thread Press for over a decade, a dual release print-on-demand + free .pdf platform that straddles the digital and print paradigms, where she self-published ten other books of poems. Her new chaplet “Adam” (2024) was just published by Belladonna Collaborative. She lives in Brooklyn where she works as a writing teacher and freelance book designer.