Bog Body
︎︎︎ Abigail Helmke
︎ Oct 25, 2025
There was no Lamia or Lamashtu to rip you from me in the night
Just me
On a quiet Vancouver morning
And a soft-voiced Chinese woman doctor
And a blonde nurse who, in an attempt to make me
Feel better, asked me what I studied at school.
Russian, I said. I was embarrassed.
She told me that her brother did, too,
And now he makes icons
By hand.
You were not made by hands—
I remember—
But, like an old saint of whom
No photos exist, your image hangs
In my mind.
Incorrupt possibility.
I never actually saw your eyes or your hair
But I know them.
All I ever saw of you was what you left behind—
Blood, thick and black
Like wet peat or tar
That bubbled out of me like a spring.
And I felt myself turn into a peat bog
Woman-shaped, walking
Mat’ syraya zemlya, Мать сырая земля
A little mother
Made of sodden abiotic earth that
Takes lives and tucks them in,
Perfect and sleeping and hidden
Unto the ages of ages.
Five years later, I remember you.
It’s only me who carries the hollow you left,
Your ghost, microfossils of you,
All in the black bog of my body.
Your soul weighs more than you did
And I carry it and will carry it
Perfect and sleeping and hidden
Unto ages of ages.
Just me
On a quiet Vancouver morning
And a soft-voiced Chinese woman doctor
And a blonde nurse who, in an attempt to make me
Feel better, asked me what I studied at school.
Russian, I said. I was embarrassed.
She told me that her brother did, too,
And now he makes icons
By hand.
You were not made by hands—
I remember—
But, like an old saint of whom
No photos exist, your image hangs
In my mind.
Incorrupt possibility.
I never actually saw your eyes or your hair
But I know them.
All I ever saw of you was what you left behind—
Blood, thick and black
Like wet peat or tar
That bubbled out of me like a spring.
And I felt myself turn into a peat bog
Woman-shaped, walking
Mat’ syraya zemlya, Мать сырая земля
A little mother
Made of sodden abiotic earth that
Takes lives and tucks them in,
Perfect and sleeping and hidden
Unto the ages of ages.
Five years later, I remember you.
It’s only me who carries the hollow you left,
Your ghost, microfossils of you,
All in the black bog of my body.
Your soul weighs more than you did
And I carry it and will carry it
Perfect and sleeping and hidden
Unto ages of ages.
Abigail Helmke is a writer, artist, and researcher in Montreal.