by E Kristin Anderson
(after The X-Files)
Inside the body: a horror a single suspect to pull away with silver forceps
a shimmer of misadventure to leave in a jar. Tonight I’d like to reach inside
my chest cavity and see who else is there— some dark traveller to collude
with my anatomy. There are things we can’t bury in the muck of our cities.
Shining wet: the monsters we let live so long as they remain unseen strange lips
sucking bloody at our fingers. Scully, do you see this— the physiology
of belief the sanguine draw of coincidence? Doctor Scully if you could
reach inside me would you find a freakish marvel? Would you remove it?
Perhaps these are the discoveries best left for your autopsy table. I’ll wait.
I’ll try to see through the eyes of the grotesque pink mouths profane to hold
nightmares dipping below pavement demanding flesh for flesh. Multiplying.
Still: Put those parasitic arms at my waist. Love genetic mutiny. Find hands to
host the river shout animal in the sewer. We melt disasters into earth—
a personal apocalypse a missive sent to sea. Slip your evidence yellow-eyed
into a drawer. Scully, my data is still in my viscera: an obsession entirely mine.
E. Kristin Anderson is a poet, Starbucks connoisseur, and glitter enthusiast living in Austin, Texas. She is the editor of Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture (Anomalous Press), and Hysteria: Writing the female body (Sable Books, forthcoming). Kristin is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry including A Guide for the Practical Abductee (Red Bird Chapbooks), Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), 17 seventeen XVII (Grey Book Press), and Behind, All You’ve Got (Semiperfect Press, forthcoming). Kristin is an assistant poetry editor at The Boiler and an editorial assistant at Sugared Water. Once upon a time she worked nights at The New Yorker. Find her online at EKristinAnderson.com and on twitter at @ek_anderson.