I Loved Your Appendix
They took it.
pink and yellow tissue,
tender apricot flesh,
an add-on to you.
an inconsequential appendage,
a mere flap of skin, useless.
Your bare abdomen.
a summer meadow dotted with the yellow
Shasta Daisies of my kisses.
and small incisions
red and opening.
For one instant I saw inside
the envelope of your skin.
skin like vellum, smooth, silk, soft leather
supple from years of hard work.
warm, scented like cardamom,
persimmons, wood smoke, just moist like
grape leaves folded over hidden
and fragile innards.
They said you won’t miss it
but now I have less of you,
an appendix less, an ounce less,
as brief as a moment,
a blink while stargazing.
Yet someday
one of us will pass on,
not impalpable
but the whole body,
an ocean of passion become motionless,
the shell of us left for the other to hold to the ear,
listening for the roar of the sea,
for memories that bubble to the surface
from the blackness of canyons and crevices
in the deep.
The extravagance of having extra organs.
This flesh, breath, death.
Delicate, so
delicate.
Published and nominated for Pushcart Poetry Prize by Boston Literary Magazine, 2010
Published in chapbook Let the Scaffolding Collapse, Finishing Line Press, 2012
