“The hand drops a fresh globe/into the scoured skull, secures breath upon/the hemispheric nostrils and stands back,/appraising…”
O to be dismembered on a Sunday afternoon,
spread out in succession on a soft white cloth
as eyes soundly cuffed into the giant palm watch
an emerald lawn flow past the mighty hand.
Removed ears hear the distant bird’s whistle,
the satisfied smack of competent lips. Arms,
legs, hands: all washed in a tub of octane’d
blood, roughly swirled then set out to bask
in the heavenly sun. Liver and lungs
soaked and wrung till they bounce back firm
like a fresh, wet sponge. Tongue scraped,
muscles lengthened, torso drained and lubed.
Back straightened, head hand-tightened
(two-thirds turn past snug). Eyes and all
appendages thumbed flush into wet sockets.
Momentary hesitation, threshold of rejection
reached, the hand discards the heart and rips
a small box open: fibrous, stiff, clamps included,
it’s quickly soaked and snapped with muted
flourish. Lingered-over brain considered—
Bah! Out with it! The hand drops a fresh globe
into the scoured skull, secures breath upon
the hemispheric nostrils and stands back,
appraising, fading, receding, forever.
Matt Dennison’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Verse Daily, Rattle,
The Inflectionist Review, DIAGRAM, The New York Quarterly Magazine, Modern
Haiku, The National Poetry Review, Bayou Magazine, Redivider and Cider Press
Review, among others. His fiction has appeared in ShortStory Substack, THEMA,
GUD, The Blue Crow, Prole, The Wondrous Real, and Story Unlikely.
