“Bartering: Day after Diagnosis” by Cassie Garison
I will give you my horns, hooked
& taurean. I will give you my crown,
woven from rose-thorns and olive
branch, copper wire & shards
of glass. I have been collecting
shells: fastening them together
with scraps of twine, wind them tight
around my neck. They drag me deep
beneath a rabid sea. Other days:
I press each conch into my skin
let it sting like iron at the hip
of a cow. I have been collecting
parts of myself like this, too.
Stashing them in pill bottles:
holy communion shoved
beneath the shipwreck
of my tongue.
*
Cassie Garison is a queer poet who currently resides in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Cassie graduated from Franklin & Marshall College with a double major in English and Classical Language and has had work published in River Styx, mojo, Nimrod International, and The Penny Dreadful.
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