nanette rayman

Almostfinal

Women who sleep on concrete are like
crushed egg cartons. They open as
virginal mirrors, liquid as their fallopian hair
as they lie in their soft-boned splay.

Use to be I dreamed of pressing
my thighs into cornfields
or draping myself naked on oceans
moon coming close, drizzling
like the sweat of a hired man

But doesn't the world foil what is most potent?
now my belly creaks and if flush with sores
I can't lie on my belly for fear
of allowing my back blades to mice and men
who'd slit me open with a fang or goblinfolder

If I lie with breasts prone to the moon
they'll pule like infants thrown in trash
decomposed under slabs of granite mother
their bodies torqued in almostfinal baroque poses

Women who sleep on concrete don't sleep
mornings they pluck grinding teeth out of festered jaws
and watch their poems and Cassandra faces
bleed in gashes fully uttered on wrists
working to sculpt themselves into something human