CHARLOTTE COVEY
body composition before you, i could fit every piece of me into a backroad, a needle. a beginning and an end. sometimes, you treat me like a sweet cherry, halved between your teeth, split open like a flesh wound. sometimes, i try to map you out with my fingers, each tip finding and failing to replicate your many angles. i have trained my hands not to shake around you. sometimes, you smirk, and they forget. i’ve been longing for the dun of your skin, for your tired eyes the color of pool water. you have become the god of my body: each shiver through cells, each twitch of tendon. somehow, you became what is holy: my tithe comes in the shape of my mouth against yours. i live in the church between your bones, each rib a pew to worship in. sometimes, i’m an aspen tree, trembling in your slightest breeze.
44 | Raleigh Review
