Stefanie Kirby
Ruptures
Begin with the end:
my body
carries you still, like a reliquary
holds death skin to skin, cradles
everything
built of bones. Another
end where insides
spill onto a lap:
the twist of rib cage, a pelvis
flexed to concavity. Spineless,
sand gathers into hills,
into bellies
that line ocean floors & cover
themselves with seagrass tongues.
Taste salt.
Blood. An octopus will beat
herself against rocks, consume
her own tentacles after
birth. This feels
familiar: to become consumable, a body
in violent
decline. A reliquary knows
the unreliability of soft tissue, a matter
of decomposition time.
Begin
in the architecture of a wound like that
of a shrine, of shelter:
fleeting.
Begin with the end:
my body
carries you still, like a reliquary
holds death skin to skin, cradles
everything
built of bones. Another
end where insides
spill onto a lap:
the twist of rib cage, a pelvis
flexed to concavity. Spineless,
sand gathers into hills,
into bellies
that line ocean floors & cover
themselves with seagrass tongues.
Taste salt.
Blood. An octopus will beat
herself against rocks, consume
her own tentacles after
birth. This feels
familiar: to become consumable, a body
in violent
decline. A reliquary knows
the unreliability of soft tissue, a matter
of decomposition time.
Begin
in the architecture of a wound like that
of a shrine, of shelter:
fleeting.
--
Stefanie Kirby is a Pushcart nominated poet residing along Colorado’s front range. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Passages North, Portland Review, Clockhouse, Rust+Moth, DIALOGIST, and elsewhere.
Stefanie Kirby is a Pushcart nominated poet residing along Colorado’s front range. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Passages North, Portland Review, Clockhouse, Rust+Moth, DIALOGIST, and elsewhere.