by Lauren Bledsoe
Stripped of its bark, the body knows nothing of water,
yet runs red with it. Not a river, but the way it moves–
the last time I saw you. Wrists unravelled, you threw me
into fistfuls of air, not for the wind but for the look of it,
bones broken out of their own shadow. You said my face
looking back at you made you forget your own name.
But of course, what sank through the air wasn’t body.
What broke wasn’t glass. Even now I want it back–
chrome in my mouth, the horses outside running red.
I want to be split apart. I want to be cut to my core.
That salt, that hymn. Our quiet violence.
All we wanted, a crack in the light.
A crack in the body, all we got.