SM Stubbs
Look around, you have
work to do. Our flesh suits
are tattered. We were designed
to withstand the rigors
of the fight and this one
isn’t over. We need you
in the ballroom presiding
over the bobbins and needles
flashing along our spines,
we need to be certain
it’s done right. When you rip
stitches from our thighs
please replace our veins
with hydraulic lines, our chests
with metal plates.
Use scar tissue for our lips,
we must love every fissured inch
of who we become.
Few will be pleased with the fit,
how the skin puckers
and sags. We’re in this until
we’re not. Use pieces you have:
frayed cuffs, cast off
remnants, other peoples’
undiminished hearts.
***
SM Stubbs helps run a bar in Brooklyn. He is the recipient of a scholarship to Bread Loaf Writers Conference and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets. Winner of the 2019 Rose Warner Poetry Prize from The Freshwater Review, he was also the runner-up in both the Atticus Review Poetry Contest 2019 and the Cagibi 2019 Macaron Prize. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The Normal School, Puerto del Sol, The Pinch, Cherry Tree, Carolina Quarterly, The Bookends Review, among others, with work forthcoming in Iron Horse Literary Review and New Ohio Review.