The Muscle Feast by Zelda Chappel

Break my shell, reveal the green of weathered copper,
thin mother of pearl in full rainbow split. Show the air
the softness of my flesh but don’t forget to let me outline it
for you first. Expose me to the gulls. I cannot wait for sun,
nor the salt of her. Be sure to breathe slow as you do it.
Don’t pretend this is not deliberate. Embrace your poise.
It’s the middle months that mean the most, their wait.
It’s anticipation. The way I’ve balanced on the cusp in fear
and trust is worse each year, I know. I am more brittle
in this age now sand works hard to do its thing and you
are happy with its scratch. The pulse of dead muscles is
too subtle for your tastes. She’ll linger, acrid in the drive
of blood by heart and breath by lung—a slow ratchet click
until I am wound and you are tighter. One day, I’ll be fiercer.

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Zelda writes, often on the backs of things. Her work can be found in several magazines in print and online and her debut collection, The Girl in the Dog-tooth Coat is due for publication in July 2015 with Bare Fiction.