by Erika Luckert
I’ve come to distrust the sun and so
I take an x-ray of a rose, increase
the contrast, see the petals fold
in less deceptive light.
I want to see the bones and trace
their joints, to understand the way
they bend and sway.
In my basement suite I used to hang
a bouquet upside down
with thread to strangle
or suspend its blooms
so the blood could stay flushed red
in their heads as they dried
in the dark.
The radiation might bleach them,
but it will be brief, micro-flicker
of blaze through a window
of beryllium:
there will be stipules, thorn and stem,
the rose’s hip, all its pertinent pieces
lit as per their density:
an image of pappus, sepal, seed, and finally
I’ll be able to see if there are any bones,
and are they broken, if there are
any joints and have they healed,
if there are parts in them like parts I’ve seen in me.
Hold still, dear specimen, stop flickering.
You’ll soon be lightless, see each limb.
When leaves can’t last, the window light
disgathers them. The mess of tissue,
crush of red compressed around
a tender skull will wilt or bloom
or somehow open in this tunnelled light.
Eventually the last bruised petal pulls away.
Blossom of spine and thorn, the back-lit bones.
Erika Luckert is a poet, writer, and educator. Her work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, CALYX, Room Magazine, Tampa Review, F(r)iction, Atticus Review, Boston Review, and elsewhere. A graduate of Columbia University’s MFA in Poetry, Erika has taught creative and critical writing at public schools and colleges across New York City. In 2017, she was awarded the 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Erika is currently a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.