chemo

and after the poison, the hips narrowed to bone.

there was less of me then, hair shed,

bruises on the inside of elbows.

I did not know what to believe:

was I somehow better now, that there was not excess of me,

that the spread of death was quenched?

acid throat, the shattered rending.

where had my heart gone? the lungs were petrified.

the intellect dull and ill at ease—this is not right.

the ceaseless separation, hands moving on their own—

to soothe what, they did not know, but soothe they did.

sit and wait to remember myself.

…

anna-christina betekhtin