Body Poem
Sam Bovard

1.
I peel my blackened toenail 
Back and
It opens like an oyster; 
With a pop, and with wetness, red wine vinegar 
Squirting into my off-white bathtub.
But look! Underneath 
There is a pearl,
A baby nail, sequestered 
Under the old rot. 
In the way that beetles lay their eggs in old logs,
The body needs decay to
Grow

2.
My body is a pit 
I sink the rest of me, 
The things untouchable,
Into.
I am only a vessel to be filled 
And emptied, to be hollowed out 
Like a drinking gourd, 
Like a dipper in the sky. 
For any part of me to touch
Your mouth,
Even just my name,
Is enough. 

3.
Pain is the snake
in my body I’ve named 
Intestines. 
I dreamed it was pulled from me 
like taffy on a hook
pink.
I’m curled around a porcelain prison 
until the constrictions finish 
tethered in two-week dosages for 
the rest of my life,
until the medicine or my heart
stops working.