Graceina Samosir
—sorry, what I’m trying to say is
when I tell you my vagina once prolapsed, I mean
it’s amazing what doesn’t hurt. My chest when he pushed
his weight off me in self-defense class,
after he grabbed my hair and pinned me
to the hardwood, sweaty gasoline-blonde arm
shoved against my pelvis untilI
I tasted iron. My breast
heavy in my hand as the rain-stunned ringneck dove
I cradled behind the house
before the hawk carried it over
still blue water.
Once my mother
watched a painter bite her own wrist, spread blood across the canvas.
Bleeding a little after the speculum,
do I smear the air with succulent rust
walking home tonight? My nails broken craters
I’ve chewed without noticing again, throat scabs sticky
red opals, coals. If a man keeps pace with me across the street
does he do it on purpose or does he not notice
how I hide my panic
like a blank cartridge in the skull of a deer?
—————
Kelly Weber (she/they) is the author of the debut poetry collection We Are Changed to Deer at the Broken Place (Tupelo Press, 2022) and the chapbook The Dodo Heart Museum (dancing girl press, 2021). Their work has received Pushcart nominations and has appeared or is forthcoming in Southeast Review, Brevity, The Missouri Review, The Journal, Passages North, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Colorado State University and lives with two rescue cats. More of their work can be found at kellymweber.com.