blushing biopsies

by Dylan Krieger

when the biosphere of my body muddies
my mother waits out in the gynecologist’s
lobby with a sanitary napkin and a vicodin
like, congrats on surviving. they slice the
skin above my clitoris and hole-punch
my cervix “to be thorough” like horses
without the breeding. see how easy
it would be to keep this secret? i don’t
need your sympathy and since then
the scars have clammed up seamless
but when 20 and horny, fear death by
genital trauma, the oh my god of the
impossible liftoff: passion from pant-
omime, vaseline from vaginal lore
the horror is the whore you were
wouldn’t recognize you curled up
in the back of your parents’ crappy
sedan stretching your tear ducts
in an attempt to fit the entire fucking
fatherland—i wonder where they are
now, all the pieces of my proverbial
flower down the drain under the
operating table. paint my figure,
little freshmen, however you like
just don’t miss the little tidbits
missing, the gapping of the flesh
over the heart’s chamber of fester
over whatever tender’s left

Dylan Krieger is an automatic meaning generator in south Louisiana, where she now sunlights as a trade mag editor. Her debut poetry collection, Giving Godhead (Delete Press, 2017), was one of the New York Times Book Review’s “100 Notable Books of 2017.” She is also the author of dreamland trash (Saint Julian Press, forthcoming), no ledge left to love (Ping-Pong Free Press, forthcoming), and an autobiographical meditation on the Church of Euthanasia called The Mother Wart. Find her at www.dylankrieger.com.