Self-Portrait in Revision

            i am under renovation. i am a work of restoration. i am rebuilding

after destruction. all my names for beauty have scurried off like crabs

to bury their soft bodies in the sand. i am the wound that waits patiently

for blood to arrive. knowing it has to travel far. deep from the watershed of every

storm-licked sky. but i am not patient. i scream at stop lights. in slow lines at the

grocery store. at the edge of gravesites while people engage in small talk.  i am

a yellow crave slinking off into a dark corner.  i hear quiet down now. i hear

settle down now. and a murder of scrub grass untangles in my throat. i seek simplicity.

yet swaddle myself in complication. in the passage of other bodies. in the simmering

tides of fluid and fur. i am a fog of moonlight spilling through the ribs of your cage.

a warm bath of crows. a flood of empty words. i am an offering. i am a rejection.

i am blood spill. i am a drop of honey. i am vacancy of body. i am animal in high heels.

a howl in the bathroom. a mad crush in the space between moments. a boneless

blank page. i am a pool of skin in your mouth. i am a long blue sigh of hunger

disguised as a reckoning.

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Susan Milchman's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal, Sweet Tree Review, Stirring, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, bramble & thorn (an anthology from Porkbelly Press, 2017), Rogue Agent, Rust+Moth, and elsewhere. She was a Best of the Net nominee in 2018 and is working on her first chapbook. Susan lives in Minneapolis by way of Washington, D.C. and holds a degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland. Her published work can be found at susanmilchman.com.