Pamela Manasco

Anatomica

Here, where your fingertips brushed
      tissue hardened from a fish hook,
            some neuron fired—oh.
Golden, this light tunnels,
      purple ropes slide
            down the spine,
a jolt to start a harbor's lights
      to blinking.
Here, my knee, the skin peeled
      away on concrete, and patched itself
            as quickly. Here
a cast iron skillet burned. Here
      a freckle met another: my body's
            latitude. Have you ever
seen this whole skin, the stretch
      of muscle underneath?
When the doctors saw you open, pump your heart
      with intimate fingers, that is called cracking the chest.
We are so breakable. See this knot
      above my back, the small
            curve between & above
my hips: they drew a needle
      through the skin & bone,
            and with a soft pop pulled out marrow.
See here, my underneath of bone
      was broken. Now kiss the ends,
            fused nub of calicified cage.
We do this to our hearts before
      we wake—we grow a thorn cage
            all around.

String Theory

From our bed, sheet-slanted light bends,
      curious and slender.
      My toes, your shins,
      the blankets' shedding noise, we say
adagio and pucker the sheets as we breathe.
      For hours, only half asleep, we curl
around the mattress; we will never
      understand it, how the winter winds
spin tiny worlds in order,
      they will tell us nothing
      of the spine by which we find them
      tethered. Ice spirals on our windows,
scratching with its nails andante, andantino
      as the smallest slice of sunrise comes.
      And it's no secret that my heart lies
      in the stars; among the nebulae expanding
I could spread and crackle open,
      my soul a clam shell, unhinging.
      All that light, such formless
      motion, the dark matter that multiplies
itself and tears further the seam
      of the universe and says the things I
      can't say: how I love the stars, I loathe
      the stars, the empty spaces between
them and the rooms I break
      into slowly, closing doors in darkness,
      biting off the threads that tie us nearer.

      Driving home tonight I'll hit a butterfly
and watch it smear a wet mark on the wind
      shield, fleck of yellow dust.

Pamela Manasco is a freelance writer and editor living in the Birmingham, Alabama area. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina—Wilmington. contact