Poetry

body-bound

by Veronica Vo

the lord                          cut her open
                in a white coat 

wanting nothing but legacy,

on a bright Texas morning to remind us
where the horizon lay. I was

something small and alive — a heart.

no longer inside but always circling her,
a new death for us both.

I forget that she lives, because

in the dark I feel eyelids flutter shut
the wood of flowers for the last time

in the shadow the height of a breast,

the sound of a breath coming unstuck,
those little spirals of air. spirals meaning

she forgets my name.

nothing. no specks in time. no alternate universes.
it doesn’t matter what happens next,

a body is a border no matter

what day was now, or then,
it was simply a day, and

neuron fire, I convince myself.

what happens next
is only life.

Appeared in Issue Fall '24