Callista Buchen

Shelburne Farms - Veterinary Office, Closet Door, courtesy of seven lemons She keeps her body around the house. There is body in the coat closet in the hall by the front door, body under the bed in plastic bins, a pile in the garage by the recycling bin. The spares, she calls them. She misplaces her body like she loses her keys. She releases it, lets her body carry her from this room to that, lets her body stretch until it must be replaced.

In the beginning, there was a boy who touched me as he shouldn’t have. His hands claustrophobic—a plot of cattails on the water’s black silt. We all have a story like this, innocent in its setting, nefarious in how it stays spurred into our bones as we grow. I think I knew I was a boy when the boy touched me. I don’t know what this says about me or the world but I know that boy is now a violent man with a large collection of semi-automatic rifles. Some things are so absolute.

boy cannot pushfrom their unborn wombtheir body that only bleedsfrom the surface // &i dip the needle into dusk drag it through skin tearingit leaves a trail of ash & tarmac // draw it away soakedin the scent of copper coins //my knees are swollencrimson for daysfractured skin blooming into roses // maybe it begins with hipscollar boneseyelashes like twitching spider’s legsthe place where thigh & ass curve into somethingnamelessless location than moment in flesh // any part of mei can coerce...