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Duplex with cutting board | Lyd Havens

—with thanks to Jericho Brown

 

 

I don’t hate my body until it’s noticed.
A man moves me with only his palm.

When I move, I have only my palms
against my chest, swelling with the tide.


I swelled with the tide, and my grandmother’s
bones were still veiled with her quietest grief.


I unveil my bones, my quietest grief.
Truth be told, I’m afraid of shrinking like her.


Truth be told, I’m afraid of shrinking.
Pomegranates will exhale under a blade.


The pomegranate exhales under the blade;
I find her voice next to her favorite spoon.


I can still hear her voice near the spoons.
There’s only love, and my body notices.

Lyd Havens is the author of the chapbooks I Gave Birth to All the Ghosts Here (Nostrovia! Press, 2018) and Chokecherry (Game Over Books, 2021). Their work has previously been published in Ploughshares, The Shallow Ends, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among others. Lyd lives in Boise, Idaho, where they will graduate from Boise State University in December 2021.

Twitter: @lydhavens

Instagram: @lydhavens

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