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The American Poetry Review

TWO POEMS

nothing body

nothing so lonely as the hospitalbed. nothing so lonely as beinglonely in the hospital bed. nothingso jargoned as the body sproutingbrush tuber cannula or rue. nothingso pure as the abstracted by which Imean exploded body, the body thatholds its skin up in semblance ofa body through the sheer repetition ofa name (maybe mother, maybe god).the doctor tends the hippocraticbody, unfurling like a frond intocommon speak, an inkwell’s claritywhere the ink is also the body. the roomloves the supinated body, dewy withasepsis and tendriling its arms into thesofthewn reaches where arms seldomgo. your body watching my bodywatching what we’ve made of my body:a nebula. a half-rabbit. that thing thattrees do when they split limb fromlimb to colonize the sky.

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