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Carnivore

I’m consuming myself,

  my doctor says, and I get

the urge each time I lift

  a fork. How it rattles

with anticipation as I aim to

  plunge it into the scar

tissue of my chest. No worries.

  The heart is not where

the heart should be. Neither

  am I. I’m supposed to be

upright and sturdy as a moose.

  Better yet, a gazelle. I

used to walk so gracefully,

  so elegantly in that animal

me. How my antelope

  nose soothed my buck’s

neck before he stotted away,

  stomping out my heart

like the last flame before

  silence. I’m lonely. This entire

burnt forest has forgotten

  my name. I bend to lick

the ash and remember

  nothing. Not even the twitch

of my heart once pink and

  alive as a nest of hatchlings.

He chewed it off just like

  I’m gnawing at the dead

gazelle of me. At night I detect

  thumping. Heartbeat or

hoofbeat, I can’t say. It creeps

  further away, memory of

a man who once loved me,

  hungering for the whole of me.

Oh I used to be more edible

  than this. And so mealy.

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