by Allyn Bernkopf
issue 77
I plunge a blade behind her head & rip
abdomen away from carapace. Her mouths
gape in silence as my bone splitter splits & I feel
her last flinch shiver under my nails. I hover
her body over a steaming bowl, new water—
tomb—to call home. Ghost limb syndrome haunts
her swimmerets & I hear scratches of red, of claws,
visualize empty ocean floors, of voices left humming
to women in shallow shells… I feel my legs shaking
& lower hers while her black beaded eyes speak silence
& I leave her half cooked because I
remember. I have somewhere else to be.