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February 5, 2016 Poetry

My Body

Moriah Pearson

My Body photo


That thing I scrape against every floor.
That thing, that thing keeps betraying me.

I knock on wooden bones for good luck,
but the splinters in knuckles act as omen.

I fold it with other bodies into technical--
but not beautiful--origami. I call it art anyway.

I drown the esophagus with citrus, white wine,
semen. There are days that don't go well enough,

yet still I try to swallow those too.
This body, what a treacherous thing,

the blame it puts on me--- 
sticking its hands into other women

& other women's cookie jars,
consuming everything of everyone's

just to throw it back up yellow & black.

 

 

image: Ian Amberson


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