3.30.22
by Emily Perkovich
The pavement cracks a little deeper with each winter, and my knees are a splintered mirror, a filly falls and falls, the film loops, the crumbling grows to standing, the standing eats the filly, becomes the mare, I become tender muscle, tense sinew,
This morning I coughed up a cadaver, palm size, a miniature death, I stained the tiles the color of a poltergeist, the pavement cracks, the grout splits,
The mare is sticky between the legs, blackberry compote clumping at her feet, the pit of the fruit blinks in slow motion, her knees hit concrete, she becomes a backwards aging, I help her pick the eyelashes from the syrup, we weep in unison
About the Author
Emily Perkovich is from the Chicago-land area and the Editor in Chief of Querencia Press. Her work strives to erase the stigma surrounding trauma victims and their responses. Her piece This is Performance-Art was a finalist for the 50th New Millennium Writings Award and she is a 2021 Best of the Net nominee. She is previously published with Cathexis Northwest, Coffin Bell Journal, and Awakened Voices among others. She is the author of the poetry collection Godshots Wanted: Apply Within and the novella Swallow. Her chapbook The Number 12 Looks Just Like You is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. You can find more of her work on IG @undermeyou