VIVISECTION

By S. A. Bender

I drew your bath at dusk

and filled it with oatmeal and iodine.

Laid the linens soft on marble.

Arranged the silver in sequence—

from whisper to wound.

You came to me as one comes to

prayer: barefoot, unsure, still

carrying your name in the fragile

bones of your throat.

I asked you to lie down,

and you did, without

question.

Love like that is already a kind

of death.

I anointed your chest with warm

water and thyme. Let my fingers

memorize your pulse before I

parted the skin like opening a long-

lost letter from an exasperated god.

Inside:

miracle

!

Inside:

languid meat and soft machinery. Blood

that pooled like spilled candlelight.

And to your gut, I mumbled, Let

me eat your devotion.

I did not flinch.

You did not cry.

We were both bare, brave.

I named each part as

I found it:

Lung, for your sighs.

Liver, for the bitterness you never spoke aloud.

Heart—still beating— for every time you said

my name like a psalm you weren’t raised to

know.

My arms were red to the elbow,

but I was not unclean. I was

blessed.

Sanctified by the intimacy of

your warm, opened parish.

You asked,

Is this love?

and I said,

It’s the only kind I believe in.

I stayed there, among the breathless maps

of you, until the robins began to call

outside and the moon washed the walls

with milk.

Then, I closed you.

Sewed each stitch with thread I spun from

my own hair.

Laid you in the clean sheets, kissed

the blood from your cheek, and

gave thanks.

I ate only what you offered.

And I did not leave a mark you

did not want me to make.

#DarkPoetsClub