Ligature
Hadara Bar-Nadav | Poetry
The surgery was open heart.
I was cut this way. Whipsawed.
Continent divided. From this, a spectacular wound.
Sealed shut, but for my awe-filled mouth,
monitored, machined, dabbed with Vaseline.
I wasn’t there. I was on the moon
floating in a chemical pool of fentanyl—
heavy cloud of black oil rimmed in gold.
Awake, and frozen. Awake, eyes open then
crashing back into the dumb moon skull.
Metal taste like a rusty length of pipe.
Every breath ever-after wed to its scar—
frosting-thick ripple of pink. Pig-colored.
I am forbidden to put my teeth on it (and I do).
Wound where the light grows
………………………………..growls
………………………………..unheals
and remembers what is written there.
Hadara Bar-Nadav is a National Endowment for the Arts fellow and the author of several books of poetry, among them The New Nudity, Lullaby (with Exit Sign), The Frame Called Ruin, Fountain and Furnace, and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight. She is also co-author of the best-selling textbook Writing Poems, 8th ed, with Michelle Boisseau. She is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Featured Image by Alexandru Acea