FINDING PHANTASIA

Sara Deniz Akant

Alone before the empty chairs, you turn to find me –
               I am biting through my mother’s belly. I am breaking my leg on the way out.

But come on, even Eve ate a dead baby dino.
Adam was still munching on his apples like a dweeb.

And these little spots of language will take chronologies of their own:
               A vertebra in the act of becoming vertebrae.
               Directly eagle into corresponding eagle.

With my mother’s mother’s rotten brain all spun out
into gold. It’s true: I washed the brain. We were stalking through
the seventh floor. Thick tape lay on the ground.
They said it was a heart, and then it was:
               the institution, thumping blood.

Alone before the empty chairs, you turn to find me –
               my spider legs; still sticking out from every hole.