BY eli V. rahm
What it means to be a border—
there are none. All body,
soaking.
My mouth opens
like a cut. Parting
skin. Pour
your infections
inside. VHS tape
tongue. A fly’s
delicate wings.
There is grace
to this. I am still
learning the slippage.
Throat matted, moss.
If I were to birth
an excess, would they
have your eyes?
What’s inside
is outside.
All organs, gifts
for the air
around me. Like my car,
masturbating
the street corner.
Hitting the curb is gay
culture, much like stitches.
Like fucking
an open
wound. Key
to ignition.
My stomach heaves,
and you let me,
writhing a new
benevolent
trauma. I have all
I have ever
needed, inside
this body.
Eli V. Rahm (they/them) is a queer writer from Virginia. Eli is the recipient of the 2023 Mary Roberts Rinehart Poetry Award and the 2020 Joseph A. Lohman III Award in Poetry. Their work is featured or forthcoming in Door is a Jar, Passages North, Bellingham Review,The Cortland Review, The Academy of American Poets, among others. You can find them at https://elisaurus.carrd.co/