Poetry | January 07, 2022
4 Poems by Maggie Queeney
The Nature of the Body of the Patient
Was it a pet gifted to her at birth, or the wild animal
broken to bear and carry the load of her, drag the cart
of her. A ribbon around the throat or a thin leather
lash across her mouth. A seashell or wrapped in inches
of sweet fruit, bleeding juice before the rot. The sand.
Covered in chain mail of charcoal scales or iridescent
plumage. Her body is not the metaphor. Shelter is not
a metaphor. What covers is not what sustains. The vehicle
that drags her closer inward, the car rumbling deeper
into the dark glitter of the mine. Or that scatters like light,
a flock, a herd, a cloud of silver bait fish. Thunderhead
with heat lightning flaring the dark boil of it, hail like seed
pearls studded in the dark velvet, like seeds sleeping
inside the dirt, waiting for the burn of wildfire to crack
open. The impressions teeth leave inside her cheeks.
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