Word For/Word [ Issue 17: Summer, 2010 ] [ Next ] [ Notes ]

Katie Marie Nealon


Body

i.
bound

                        my monsters

in spaces


{                body                  }


                                skin and


boundary
                        the monstrous


spaces                           skin



bone

 

 

ii.
exploring past lives, the animal i once was; the habits
i keep. losing my teeth and hiding them in small boxes or

losing my teeth and burying the bones in the backyard.
am i ever human? in my dreams my teeth crumble

to pieces. i spend time spitting it all out. i have spent

some lives chewing on rocks, and now my body falls

apart in its sleep. the body, a rock, and i spit it out; bury
it. wake up with bloody bits of teeth between my teeth,

pieces of meat, pieces of me, pieces of past lives i could
sit eating for days, or trying to hide.
 

 

 

Burden of Language
after Dawn Lundy Martin

Monday. I fold my poems in halves, then quarters, making cranes. It happens gently- the sounds taking shape. A beak of  nouns, body of bent words, is not a gift. Is a burden. A bird in, and of language.