Mediating the Body's Appearance

my alien form’s eccentricities—gang
of ganglia studying pink
princess’s aubergine

growth      as keyed accidentals

slicing
a serpent from
my tongue—i split
the distance

bodies make—each i
its own remains

what’s this      meat a-

lone lip dripping—bled: a mouth
unfolds
formal as lathes build

legs from circled pins
continuing—this      stabbing

in kind—

Brett Shaw

Brett Shaw lives and writes in Alabama among never quite domesticated cats and cacti that remind him of the desert in which he was raised. Recent poetry appears or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, The Journal, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. His work has received support from the Community of Writers.