e m m a    s o v i c h

from The Binding of the Body

from The Binding of the Body

from The Binding of the Body

There is a bone within the bone. She cracks it open with her chisel too. Inside, another. Bone within marrow within bone within. She fears splitting the atom, the unleashing. The bone has spoken. The bone infinite. She hears more bone rattling within as she caresses bone with teeth. The teeth chatter along the bone. Metal, mouthless. The bone within will rustle and die, she thinks. There can only be so much bone. She rubs the cream surface along her forehead, the back of her neck. Bone hungers for oil. Bone within bone sulks. More teeth, finer teeth, for the bone product. When it is done she will press it into folds and bone within will rattle and bone without will careen into a new heart caged in bone. Dense and defense. To capture by possession, redefinition.

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from The Binding of the Body

She denies her skin a sloughing. Her pages fall away

so slowly. Skin a reverse palimpsest. She seizes

a page smoothes it with bone over her wax her

hair filthy with skin page wholesome with light

weight for it for a page falls from her slowly

lift smooth press a patch a tear bone will all

smooth all pages veins scraped away crabbed

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EMMA SOVICH studies Book Arts and Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. Her chapbook, None of Us Know Any Stories, is forthcoming in fall 2014 from dancing girl press. Find her other work in or soon in Sixth Finch, Artifice Magazine, and Hayden's Ferry Review, and others. She blogs at graveyardhouse.com.

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