dissection & other forms of intimacy 

humans are destructive learners--
we learn early on that nature
is our body to dismantle
like the inside of a pocket-watch--
what did you do with the scalpels?

1.
the worm & her 5 psuedohearts--
pin her open-- this is the 
peep show-- a photograph in 
a lab book of her skinny 
torso wrapped in a thin
film from the formaldehyde

2.
the crickets were
black from seclusion
from the sun-- we hear them
chirping from
the depth of our lockers
out of our collective guilt

3.
we decorate lockers for birthdays--
wrapping paper & pom-poms-- 
why were you born in the
summer?

4.
the other girls made me
dissect the perch-- they forgot
lab shoes & leaned back
against the table & watched while
i peel back the skin
like wind up our skirts

5.
i keep my skin in my gym
lockers & never take it home to
wash it

6.
we had little guidance in 
middle school dissection--
we didn't need help learning how
to cut-- i had used an x-acto
knife before

7.
the perch was a mother &
my hands emerged with
clusters of orange eggs--
concentrations of planetary 
dust in the belly of the specimen--
the other girls shrieked
& my biology teacher beamed--
paraded the body around the room--
the un-expectant mother
& her children trapped in
a stagnant orbit around a classroom

8.
i sit the bathroom stall 
because it's quiet

9.
the star fish with four
legs-- drenched in preservative
crawls into my open
ears when i try to sleep--

10.
i begin to believe 
all sirens are yelling at me--

11.
it was me & the nurse shark--
skin smooth like my
own-- her mouth the kind
of smile only dying people
keep-- she had eyes we could
have fished for
in the creek-- between the
chemicals on my fingers
& the collage of her intestines
& my biology teacher instructing 
us to 
find the kidneys 
find the gills
find the heart 
i felt my body lurched
& i gripped the lab table-- coiled
on the speckled tile
floor--

8.
i lay on the cool tiles because it is
quiet & i have an excuse to not be
human-- 

5.
use the scalpel & peel back
my skin like you would lift
up my skirt--

5.
peel back my skin-- i am now
your perch--
your nurse shark-- you five-hearted
goddess--
what do you know about the bottom
of the locker
where the crickets haunt us?

6.
i had used an X-acto knife before

3.
where we take our carcasses when
we are through?

8.
i close my eyes
in a jar of formaldehyde--
when you're done with me
take pictures--
label my organs with stanza breaks--
remove the metaphors & 
plant the orange eggs to
grow sunflowers
from the backs of
our pocket watches--