Sandra Crouch
OPEN THIS WHEN YOU NEED ME MOST
I'm tired of talking about breasts.
My shoulders drop into the bed of my body.
If I lift the sheet
I will reveal the heart huge
as a stillbirth.
I can't decide if it is a gain
or loss—to feel my heart
just on the other side of my skin,
so close
that I could reach in
and pluck it,
like a pear.
Healing is never what you think, she says.
I know she is telling me
that it is time
to say goodbye
to the mother in me,
the eternal caretaker;
that my ovaries
are no longer the pearls
strung for other people's necks.
How a horse will run until it breaks
into weather—into wind.
Here the sky thins
and spirits spill
through the floor of heaven
into the world.
Tell me it was for the hunger
and nothing less.
Braided Cento:
Mark Cunningham, Body Language, Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2008
Ginny Jordan, Clear Cut, Lantern Books, 2012
Ocean Vuong, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, Copper Canyon Press, 2016
Title is a line by Ocean Vuong.