Precious

Kira Tucker

Copper keeps life from my womb; aluminum  fills my pores, silver my teeth. My blood won’t hold iron, so I take it daily. Food brings a sickness I can’t measure under my tongue, only on my waning waist. Some metal belongs in the body. The day a grate raised my skirt on the street, I noticed only one rush of air between ore and whore. The boy who learns to caress his face with a blade will grow into a man I’ll pay to slice my skin with steel. Beauty is no alchemy: it merely means making space for more things that shine. Like the ancient statues men scrapped for daggers. Like powder packed into bullets, their touch so intimateit kills. Like any body in this millennium, I’ll survive in silicon chips after death. Until then, lead me somewhere precious. Guide me with ungloved hands.

Peonies

Danusha Laméris

What are these strangers sitting on the table in their ruffledcollars. 

They open, close, open,

emit the scent of cracked pepper and honey. Magenta punctuation marks at which to pause. Pink commas against the green scrub. I would trade ten goats for one whiff of peonies opening in a vase. An ancient proverb says you should not let a woodpecker see you plucking a peony lest it peck out your eyes. We are afraid of happiness. Peonies are to loneliness what wind is to the trees. Are they animal? Mineral? Vegetable? They move as the sun moves. When I brought them home they were dark. Now, a whisper, balletic tulle. They are not diminished even as they turn to smoke.