Marie Kelly and Lisa Kilhefner

Lisa Kilhefner
Inspiration piece

Splay
By Marie Kelly
Response

membrane of memory:
cells cast together from a sense of urgency,
muscle-memory, soul-memory
memory of hand on throat, abduction of thighs,
couldn’t wait for timetables or stumbling to the bed.

this smear of variegated lusts does not speak
except in the color of blood
formed and deformed in the thicket of the womb
years later we find our membranes riddled with aching mystery
hand-in-hand we go with dirty glove,
through within no firmament of health does our blood circulate
but only for an epoch, for a few decades we find this stalemate.

what does a cell discern?
splatters of thought, mechanical days with winsome traces of life bursting
up from the roots
this little cell
this stodgy and stalwart blood-sucker
remembers how to dance
when ancestral blockages
bar the door
suck the root
cleave at the skin

it is self-cleaving and dull wonder
that bend our fronds
back to that incessant climax

shrouds are torn ramshackle to exposse new skin
to the elements
menstrual_ blood turns dark and dull,
the womb is no longer wanted;
but the bright cherry blood from inward cleaving
springs delicious for thirsty lips

who will take me
and feed me pomegranate seeds
until the next question is posed?

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