Rib | Elizabeth Sackett

Fracture my February,
the apple of your ribcage
and the blinding partition.
This is a calamity; this is something
I should never have bitten,
a fermentation under the
goose bumps of my skin.

A list:
never say
that someone has burrowed
deep in your dust, never
stop spinning long enough
to let the rich earth settle.
I loved being drunk on
your shadow. I loved
lunacy. Was the moon there
when we fell? The rug
certainly was, and I never finished
the sentence that lulled on
my lips.

.             I never said
here’s a thing I have never touched,
but fell to it like
the night falls on grass. Listen:
the fruit of your throat,
words dancing around truth
as though truth had any time
for that shit. You say your body
is electric, and I say my heart
is spilling out wine and blackberries.
We are both right;

there are two exits and both are
burning, and I never truly loved
the charred sunlight taste
of your words on my tongue.

Elizabeth Sackett is a sometimes-actress-sometimes-writer who studied both theater and writing at SUNY Geneseo. She has been published in Gandy Dancer, has an upcoming feature in Fickle Muses, and spends a lot of time drawing bird skeletons.