Each unnatural—as we are—picked to pieces before our mirrors. Why not a pixie, an alien, a dinosaur? Why not clown lips, a sparkling pullulation? We too are islands colonized by flotsam, gutters clotted with the runoff of galaxies. None binary, deep pores and mustache-wisps abut long lashes, an ingenue’s moue. Her colors are heinous, strip mall slap-dash, the office of the only doctor one can afford. Nobody’s here but me, Cindy sing-songs to her anatomy dummy, content in her agoraphobia. Tenement matryoshkas, we house all the selves we’ll ever need, our work an act of charity, to find the least horrible and brood upon it like an egg.
-- Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long-form issue), Grist, and Oxidant Engine among others.