At what altar did you kneel, what cruel god
pressed his thumb against your forehead and a stone
under your tongue and did not forgive. And still
the body knew, said she is not mine, its arched
cavern breaking its own, twisting daughter legs into
daughter fins, a fish for a flower, cold reptilian
blue, sliding into first light: the murmurs she is not
right, the feet tucked in and under, furled twins.
Coax her unfolded and plaster each limb, hold fast
the binding but please show her how to survive
this: force feet into molded shoes
and let her stand.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 4.
Susannah Nevison is the recipient of a 2013 Academy of American Poets Larry Levis Prize, and won the 2013 American Literary Review Poetry Prize. Her first book, Teratology, won the 2014 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, and is forthcoming from Persea Books in 2015.
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