you cannot read what you do not collect
the rain came in algidity after
suffocating heat still the ravaging of
marow is worth it tendons swollen &
seasoned with need madness is always
a hunger that i
am even able to eat is its own feat
i have learned to swallow charitably
cede my mouth to the gristle cede my tongue
to cartilage
a former fixation on writhing now what is
left? what is present when the flesh
rots away?
when the spirit returns to the magnitude it
belongs? when my
mother
taught me
how to
properly eat
chicken, she
told me truly
nothing had to
be left behind.
there is
meat through
the bone. this
makes
sense like
Matter.
nothing is
ever lost.
nothing is ever
gone if
devoured
completely.
Copyright © 2018 by jayy dodd. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 18, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.