Consumption by Coraline Adams

Outside the window, wind blows wayward
snowflakes from branches made bare
and brittle against raw blooms of frost.
You haven’t shaved in a few days;
the sparse, thick hairs prickling
through the skin of your shins,
your calves, bristle as you slide your legs
against each other, against mine,
for warmth underneath the covers.
In the scant moments before you remember yourself
and pull back, I’m reminded
of scattered bursts of cricket song
pouring forth into the stifling summer air,
the stroke of my fingers against the freckles
running sun-splotched down your arms.

There are cultures in which people consume
the flesh of their loved ones
to preserve the knowledge sunk deep
into the bones of sons and daughters,
mothers and fathers, passed on through blood
and tissue sucked from the marrow.
I think of this, and think of you,
and think, maybe you’ll have to eat me up,
brutal and wild, before you’ll understand
how much I love those things
you bury within yourself. 

Coraline Adams is a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in the life sciences. Every now and then she likes to step outside for deep breaths of poetry- and fiction-writing in between all of the science. Her work has previously been published in Vine Leaves Literary Journal.