there i go fainting
down the marbled
grand staircase –
one hand on my forehead, palm-
upwards.
somewhere a god
wears a cameo
of love
lines,
somewhere closer a storm
brews my colicky
gut.
i am all nerves
in my nightgown
of marrow.
dearest dental cavity
won’t you balance
this vase
on your crown
while i recite
my alibi:
constable,
constellate my pores
& leave me
salt-browed & quite
beholden.
this jury swears
so help me
that seawater
puppeteers
my reproductive
organs.
imagine the sirens
pulling my ovaries
by string
don’t mind me
costuming
this hysterectomy
luxe in my thigh gap.
i’ll get off
even with cudgel-blood
rouging my jowls.
first published in Phoebe Journal
Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing) and These Ghosts of Mine, Siamese (Dancing Girl Press). She is the editor-in-chief of Rag Queen Periodical and an associate editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Her manuscript Lizzie, Speak recently won White Stag Publishing's full-length poetry contest, and it will be published in early 2019. You can find her work featured or forthcoming in Prelude, New South, Sugar House Review, Phoebe Journal, Muse/A Journal, Bone Bouquet Journal, and more. For further information, please visit kaileytedesco.com or follow @kaileytedesco.
