Despy Boutris THIS MORNING,
I looked down at my hands
and watched a wound bloom
with blood. To compare
this plasma to a flowering thing:
amaryllis, orchid,
chrysanthemum. To memorize
creases, freckles, the sight
of this knife finding its way
into flesh. All day, the breeze
burns my ears, eyes
blurring as sunlight
filters through oak, pain
from skull to coccyx
at that golden color, unbearable,
the haze so beautiful
it’s hard to believe it’s real.
Miles away, my mother organizes
her top-drawer & finds a box
of my teeth. My mother
tells me love never lasts—
a dried-up river
with parched rocks. Nothing
left to drink.
PATRIOTISM
Your name still blossoms
on my lips
like a bleed.
And I still imagine your scarred chest,
torn open wide
like a mouth
in song, shrapnel finding
shelter in your ark
of ribs. And your face, half-
eroded with blood, your eyes
half-open at the painful
split
of bones and gristle.
I still think of your mother mourning your death,
your body resting in a trench,
then a grave,
and your anatomy:
your blueveins, your body I knew
from flank to foot, casting
a shadow on my sheets,
your skin,
once warm
against mine, now pocked
with holes, like a cut
of seacoral,
a honeycomb.
Despy Boutris's writing has been published or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, American Literary Review, The Journal, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at the University of Houston, works as assistant poetry editor for Gulf Coast, and serves as editor-in-chief of The West Review.