Burned into all of us before birth,
some brain rocket
shot, juggernaut,
crushed under the chariot
of worship.
Things we love don’t love us back.
Right?
Parts of me crushed, parts of me used, parts of me gleaming
like surgical instruments under neon light,
doctor muttering jokes, nurse obligated
to laugh.
To laugh.
I woke up with the word on my tongue: ectoplasm.
What? My husband said. Nothing.
But it can exude from the body during divine dance,
spiritual trance. Glitter.
Don’t confuse these names with stars: Mediven, Juzo, Jobst.
Run! They’ll tell you it’ll be a second skin. Texture like an
elephant,
like a dead thing.
Cancer, you’re the best liar inside of this shell.
Don’t confuse these names with stars.
1 Retrogade
Anne Dyer Stuart’s publications include NELLE, Pleiades, North American Review, AGNI, The American Journal of Poetry, Raleigh Review, Cherry Tree, Sugar House Review, The Texas Review, Louisiana Literature, and The Louisville Review. Her work won New South Journal’s Prose Contest, was anthologized in Best of the Web, and nominated for Best New Poets. What Girls Learn, a finalist for Comstock Review’s Chapbook Contest, was published by Finishing Line Press. She teaches at Commonwealth University-Bloomsburg.