Lithopedion

Breaking like a ninepin inside. We were fulfilled but also
petrified. Tied up by an adhesion, this is the story that we like
to tell: divided into parts. This is the story of an arm, a leg,
an “armistice immobile.” Hands as if taped to the head, legs
akimbo. “We slid the bright contraption over calves.” Now,
through this curtain we can see our rolling dawn: white
and encased, how many eons in the making. The sun now
rising through its tubes, we wonder if we are a ball or pin.

Copyright © 2024 by Katy Lederer. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 7, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.