Exhumation for the Purposes of Quantifying Love/Not Love – KE Morash

Exhumation for the Purposes of Quantifying Love/Not Love

On the anniversary I dig up your spleen
intact; the worms refused it
but not your heart

My spade separates body from organ
I hold it in hand; you glisten
like gristle in the 4.30 glow

Lighter than anticipated; I weigh
up where you held me and find the density
collapsing into an empty centre

The unwrapping is mine; the song at last too I
peel your tissue and sing, and sing and pass
from hand to hand, hoping when I stop

there will be a sharp red pebble cutting into the flesh
secretly deposited when you were feeling a bit drunk
examining a copied photograph

your arms an orbit around me
my arms hugging a bowl the bowl
containing strawberries that made my guts heave.

There is earth and offal staining my palms
as you unravel in my lap:
rancid swaddling cloth for your child’s children.

No prizes

…

KE Morash is a playwright and poet. Her writing has received prizes and been published in Spelt, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Songs of Love & Strength; Live Canon Anthology 2019 and 2018; Room; Understorey; Literary Mama; Sentinel Literary Quarterly; Bare Fiction; amongst others.