Pathology
I used to have a depression
on the ring finger
of my right hand
from where I would crush
a pencil against it
while writing. You tell me
the body makes room
for our favorite ways, bones thicken
like pearls from the heft
of a child. The teeth will alter
their common alignment, to pocket
a pipe-stem, to mention
malnutrition. The twisted foot
betrays a man bent
in the mines—the chipped skull
is a keyhole to let angels in.
The pelvic girdle a vessel, widens,
billows at its sutures where
the male’s remains heart-shaped
and rigid. Were I left-
-handed, my right tibia
would be lighter and more slender.
Were I beaten enough, even this
would be written in my bones.
on the ring finger
of my right hand
from where I would crush
a pencil against it
while writing. You tell me
the body makes room
for our favorite ways, bones thicken
like pearls from the heft
of a child. The teeth will alter
their common alignment, to pocket
a pipe-stem, to mention
malnutrition. The twisted foot
betrays a man bent
in the mines—the chipped skull
is a keyhole to let angels in.
The pelvic girdle a vessel, widens,
billows at its sutures where
the male’s remains heart-shaped
and rigid. Were I left-
-handed, my right tibia
would be lighter and more slender.
Were I beaten enough, even this
would be written in my bones.
“Pathology” originally appeared in The Iowa Review and has been reprinted here with permission of the author.
is a Zell Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Michigan, and is a descendant of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in Drunken Boat, Sonora Review, The Iowa Review, SOFTBLOW, Apogee, Day One, and elsewhere. She is the managing editor of the .
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