Duplex for my body

E.M. Davis

The body closes its ears,

won’t bring itself to heel.

 

The blister on my heel is plump and split

open like an overripe gooseberry pearl.

 

As a child, I gorged on sour, green gooseberries.

I abandoned my plans to live a sated life.

 

I deserted my plans to shrink before I was forty.

This one makes for a hungry beast.

 

This beast is a sound I can’t place

inside my mouth, trips itself, ties a tongue.

 

My mouth trips and falls inside a word,

each vowel a lung in exhale,

 

each vowel a –

the body closes its ears.

E.M. Davis (she/her) is a poet and musician from the North East coast of England. She is published in various online and in-print magazines and anthologies including the Kaleidoscopic Minds anthology and Written Off Publishing's anthology of northern poetry. Upcoming work is due to be published in the Black Cat Poetry Press' nature anthology and the York Literary Review.