Sex
Maria Gray
Two years I was celibate, body a dog
in the prelude of death —
everywhere I went I was hunted,
O Lord, everywhere I went
another door swung shut.
Each morning I woke
beneath glass, abdomen swollen
with sorrow. There is first blood
and there is real blood. And
everywhere I went, Father, I bled
without apology. I had no sorries left
in me. The body a catalogue
of sudden agonies, a useless thing
I deigned to carry. A purse,
a corpse. Still some days I feel
I am living sideways. When I grow up
I want to be an angel
so nobody can touch me again.
Fever Dream Dispatch
Maybe I’ll write something good
in a year. Maybe I’ll feel something
in a year. A lot can happen in a year.
A lot can happen all at once.
A lot is always happening.
I don’t want to die anymore. I only want
to feel better. Maybe I’ll feel better
in a year. What I mean to say is
when I reach for myself nowadays
I am never there. I think I am a good person,
mostly. I think there are people
whom I love. I think I am doing right
by myself, but when I wake
I wake into a dream, sharks snapping
at my ankles. I wake into a foreign body
with year-old wounds. Springtime,
the season of knives, slices me in half
like an apple. The sky is so blue
I fear it could kill me, pulsing on the skin
of Heaven like a bruise. Still I suppose
I am on Earth, and still I suppose
I should expect to be devoured.
about the writer
Maria Gray lives in Maine. Her poetry appears in The Foundationalist, Counterclock Journal, Perhappened Magazine, and others. In 2018, she participated in the Adroit Journal’s summer mentorship program as a poetry mentee, and in 2019, she served as a Counterclock Arts Collective writing fellow. She is the recipient of awards from Bates College, Portland State University, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, and others. Find her at mariagray.carrd.co.