I remember/your body/I swallow it whole/like a pill/that cannot be crushed
There is a better plane/somewhere else/you are still/living/and you wake/another airy deer-soft morning/on the cusp of/what/I remember/your body/dropped and ruined/in the bruise-colored stream/skull shattered/mislaid teeth like/ rose petals/among the ferns and/the cattails and all the rest
I remember/my body/that disobedient cluster/of unholy electricity/alarms/only I could hear/ resounding in the cavern/I was
There is a wooded/invented place/where/the forest does not know you/are gone/where/you did not slip/through the creek bed/forgoing your body/leaving me/with only fiction/I remember/your body/and other stories/and other jagged things/that tear my throat
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Katherine Orfinger is the author of Nobody’s Good Girl and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rosemont College. Her work has appeared in SWAMP Writing, The Write Launch, Amethyst Review, and others. She draws inspiration from her Floridian hometown and Jewish faith. She currently resides in Pennsylvania with her partner.
