the dry-humored sky refuses to respect 
the plasma of my pain. it smirks up its 
sleeve at the leaks oozing from fresh  
                 wounds, unwrapping a hot, 
                 plastic sun to queer the lymph. 
“they’re only paper cuts,” it sneers 

denying humanity’s trauma. I’m not 
surprised—life’s packaging mystifies me. 
eyes creak wide open while the front door 
                 doors of mechanized tissue-box 
                 hearts click closed, guarantees 
collapse like cardboard flaps  

& locks snap shut on fingers. I can tell 
when the physics of origami fold 
against me. taste this papyrus— 
                  it’s nicking my lips. 
                  love’s paper petals detach 
whenever its glue-stick goes into 

shock. do the spirit’s deepest lacerations 
ever congeal? you & I must decide. 
you thought of something— 
                   but we lost the vocabulary 
                   for unwrapping compromise, 
slicing our tongues each time 

we tie the silver bow on a brand new 
box of promises. I know I’m a half- 
breed lesion: part gristle, part olive-branch. 
                   cut & shuffle my secretions 
                   into an epistle. like confetti, 
we’re all in bits, existing only to be tossed. 

kerry rawlinson is a mental nomad & bloody-minded optimist who gravitated to Canada from Zambia. Honorably mentioned in Proverse Press and Fish Poetry prizes, she’s placed in others, e.g. Bridport, Canterbury Poetry; Room; National Poetry Society and Palette. Recent work: Suburban Review; Topic Take Up; Grain; Freefall; Rochford St. Review; Prism Review; Event Poetry; Prairie Fire, and more. She’s still barefoot, still drinking too much (tea). kerryrawlinson.com @kerryrawli