Erinn Batykefer
I like the feel of a body
remembering a person that isn’t there:
every kiss undertaken like a shivering virgin,
like a green junkie chasing the first high.
It’s as if your senses search for you,
calling your name down empty hallways,
but finding only me. See, if I pour my will
through my eyes,
I can enter you like a lobotomy spike
and wear your skin like a costume,
run around as not-me and also not-you,
my original body slumped in the hallway
like a shucked coat, milky eyes staring,
till I come back to it.
You won’t remember this,
of course. You won’t even remember
me telling you not to. There’s only now–
the now of a screaming orgasm, the now
of your hand tearing your lover’s eye
from his face so I can crawl inside.
How I dance him till his ankles break.
How you clap.
***
Erinn Batykefer earned her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the author of Allegheny, Monongahela (Red Hen Press) and The Artist’s Library: A Field Guide (Coffee House Press). She is co-founder and editor of The Library as Incubator Project, and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.