Seeking Clear Margins by Krista Genevieve Farris

A surgeon imagines herself in preschool

astonished by trust and the knife in her pudgy hand

the moment before she deftly halves an apple.

She learned a technique when she was four.

Breathe in through your nose like an indignant bull.

Fill your belly with enough air to burst. But, don’t.

Be

for ten seconds

a deep purple balloon

with a pin-pricked hole

above the knot in its neck.

Quietly leak

a hushed bubble

that encircles you.

Then, dear child, you’re good to go.

She sliced Red Delicious skin, shared fruit, cut more to extract seeds

from the star center, walked to the edge of the playground’s blacktop,

toed a divot in the dirt, dropped the teensy hard ovals in the hole,

hoped a sturdy giving tree could sprout from violent severing.

She studies my chest. Eyes trace the ring

around the rose-colored circle of my nipple.

She leans-in with keen scalpel, amputates, creates

ambiguous absence where things, in me, might grow.

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Krista Genevieve Farris writes about whatever tickles her not so fancy in whatever form fits. Her work has been included in a wide variety of journals and magazines. Links to her published poetry, essays and stories can be found at her writer's website. https://kristagenevievefarris.wordpress.com/