Two Poems | Gabriella Graceffo
Displaying the Wounds
Now I know that I’ve never explained
anything well, not once, not cleaning
a vulva or pulling thighs from leather
seats in summer or baby talk or family
recipes that call for dash, pinch, or smidgen.
Not my desperate need to show you
my wounds, for you to touch them
like Thomas did Christ’s side but deeper,
to the wrist if you can. I call my mother and
try to explain how I miss my childhood’s
easy way of healing a bruise or a bone
or a bad memory with smooth, new skin.
I try to explain my obsession
with my Johnny apple peeler, the one
that cores and peels and slices
all at once. I buy the most expensive
apples, splurge for their sugar,
lick juice from my palm like a child.
There’s blood, too, the prongs longer
than I remember. I want to explain
the shape they leave. I want to explain
stigmata and dermis and all the words
I use to hide myself in language. I could
explain it all for hours without saying
a single thing that’s real. My feelings
are so far inside myself I can’t touch them.
That’s why I want your hand inside me:
to learn the difference between organ
and sweetmeat and sentiment,
but you never reach far enough.
He Tells Me He Wants
​
to crush my throat
& push into its curve
metal to spread hands over my stomach
terror ratcheting the muscle
around my navel whose numbers spell out how many days
it will take to tell anyone what happened
I’m losing my freshness, tight parts going
& I imagine there’s a heist happening
not where it hurts but deeper
of safety deposit boxes
in their soft padding
under the force like the lobster
caught & slammed open
if its roe would turn
I sit in the shower after
to make my inner lining more like velvet
if my own eggs have changed
to grip the thin crater there
like a blacksmith buckling
& feel soft
to finger a rotary dial
I know
loose
inside me
an imaginary room full
& I need to hide myself
I rip one down & the lock cracks
my second cousin
to see
red when it died
burning my labia with peroxide
& I wonder
& if I’ll ever know
Gabriella Graceffo is a poet and essayist working in Missoula, MT. She is a graduate student at the University of Montana pursuing an MFA in Poetry and an MA in Literature. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Cordite, Autofocus, Birdcoat Quarterly, Juked, and The Chestnut Review.