DEATH Poem: Malignancy, by Molly Gustafson

After “Hunger” by Rachel Eliza Griffith (76)
Breaths after the wedding he tried to bite the rotting peach
Expecting vibrant, plump skin breaking, dripping
down the soft palm. I hid from buzzards up above.
Predators from the wild that I had unequivocally revered.
Left in the liver of a young painter, disease
cried softly until it screamed. The sickness consumes
the human possibility, coaxing its gentle pain. Dress reddening dark
until I called out to the man from what I remembered hazily.
Lacerations can be made, forcefully, even through a covenant.
Lacerations can be made whether or not the body will betray.
I hurried to dress each morning because it would sting to be unclothed & alone.
The man’s smile spreading thin, different than its inception & showing
its yellowed, separate teeth. I felt like curling up, but cautiously, I stayed tall.
Found that I was curious deeply about the killing cells
reaching excitedly into the organ. I read the essays,
Spent hours on the websites of pseudo-medicine. Was this the purpose and the punishment?
This was another crime falling into my sentence, the date of my execution.
Attaching all of the contusions into a map,
walking me down the aisle. He admires a deer skull
shot dead in July, staring & staring at the tiles on the wall,
a strange place to relive your death. The sickening body dismissed
with seeming alien to what he wanted when he asked.

Author: poetryfest

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