If I Erase My Body
Jennifer Whalen
I’ll start with the cunt
because I like a real-deal
roll-up-your-sleeves kind of challenge
because the middle is as good a place
as any because the thought of that being the only-me
reminds me of every electric socket
I’ve tried to crawl into because
it would be like washing the sheets
after sorry sex or scrubbing my name
from the band of my underwear
because I like the thought of it folding
into a hundred-sided polygon & harrowing
into my heart because I’m tired of carrying it
light as a locket but heavy as the faded mother
within because sometimes I imagine it soft
as a small chipmunk nuzzling my ankle whimpering
for milk because it’s aloof & confuses
whose tongue-ridge is worth remembering
because it doesn’t respond to its own name
in my mouth because it can’t decide how gingerly
you should collect its petals because
it wants to exist finally free
of description because the windowsills
dangle wasp nests & there’s already too many hollows
to decorate my worry because if gone
it couldn’t be gotten to because
if this is my erasing, I choose
where it starts.
