Madeline Brzeczek
Open my sternum
to the hymns with gilt edge,
through what passage the blade opens.
My soul shifts, steady pulse,
scraped aside, like meat from bone,
call blood to answer the flood, singing in the field.
My body does not belong to me,
a body is a home is a prodigal’s paradise.
I am made an icon, each fingerprint pressed into
my false trail in blood. I ask a sacrifice: votive offerings.
Not the nape of my own neck, not the soul –
Take me instead to the rivers with vengeful gods.
What the knife knows is its own sweet progress,
I fear neither the sight nor the word for blood.
Speak to me never again about sacrifice,
you chose me as the temple for your goddesses.
Lines taken from Mai Der Vang, Joan Houlihan, Kimberly Johnson, January Gill O’Neil, Leah Umansky, Traci Brimhall, Gary Young, Tina Chang, Sumita Chakraborty, Laura Kasischke, Allison Seay, and Elizabeth Macklin