this is the beneath
Savannah Slone
These are our eyes that can’t blink.
These are our chipped teeth.
Our luminous, opal
buttonholes that we sew
together. Me, a marble ghost,
gazing into the mirror that isn’t
there.
This is my sea of hips.
Ilium. Ischium. Pubis.
This is you, jangling my
pieces together like keys.
I sleep in a dissolving trundle
bed that doubles as an operating
table.
I am a self-surgeon.
This is dissolving inaudible.
My tendons, even my cuticles, are recovery.
This body is a clinic.
This is a paper shredder
wherein we lay.
We, embers.
Them, tattered maps.
This is the prologue and
the epilogue.
This is our body.
Intramural plum cheekbone(s)
pillars holding me up.
Originally published in Moss: Volume Four.
