ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Hannah Warren is an MFA student at the University of Kansas, and her works have appeared recently or will soon appear in Soundings East, Jet Fuel Review, and Spirit's Tincture. She often writes about death but hopes never to experience it.
The Woman to the Doctor
I try to find my own spleen and wonder
if it has bones that can crunch like clawed
crabs under my skin.
Pulsing ribs say my lungs can
flip air into toxins,
and the bluish black of my fingerprints
molds my stomach
into a jigsaw of puzzling skin
while I push deeper to feel for life
that could swirl deep beneath
my body's membrane.
Everyone knows when you swallow
a watermelon seed, sprouts erupt in your belly
and grow errant children who jostle on their vines,
but I want to know what happens when I swallow
a pill.
If I blacken the vine
with boiled tar, slick on the edges, will I grow
green again?
I want to know what happens if I choose
a garden of violets, or turnips, or a library
full of leather-bound editions
instead of pastel, peeling wallpaper—tell me
what happens when I grow twice my age,
when all that's left is an empty cavity
littered with bruises, when my pit
over-ripens in hospital waiting rooms.
Lost & Found is published by Glass Poetry Press as part of Glass: A Journal of Poetry. This project publishes work that was accepted by journals that ceased publication before the work was released.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
