2018 Wilbur Gaffney Poetry Prize

 

 

When my body was the door between life and death.

When the door opened and 500 pink krill floated out,

 

handmaidens to the rent in my flesh. When my flesh

was torn and velvet and red wet poppies. When it

 

shuddered and bowed before its death and I took the 

holy chaos on my none head. When I called her out 

 

with my surrender. When we said hello and parted 

forever. When she was born. When it was cavernous 

 

and I thought it would always be so. When it sucked 

the wound salt when it sucked the raw wound when it

 

sucked & what light there is off a wound was its own 

medicine. When it told the story of health in advance 

 

of health’s arrival. When her taste of me was my only 

eros. When her claws in my breast my only touch. 

 

When I thought it would always be so. 

When I made the ocean 

 

come into the room. When it lapped at our bed in hunger. 

When I begged for it. When I cried from it. When I was 

 

bone white coral and my networks alive. When I was a

home for your body. For mine. When no one praised how 

 

fine I was made so I prayed to my self, undulate in the fuck. 

When the ocean is home and night milk and death and all 

 

the beauty alive in it shimmers just underneath the surface. 

That. There. Now I have done it you can’t tell me anything.