Female Teratology

by Susan Konz

Terror blimps up in her heart, appendix,
knuckles, she’s not sure where it’s born
but it clutches her in joints, contracts
her belly with no way out. She knows this,
is humble in its face so that only
in pockets does she look to find ways
to bleed how she needs to. She says,
Every time I see her it’s the same story
as if it’s always happening & I guess
it is. And it is in ways, on plastic

covered beds where later or before
I have gone (she knows) to negotiate
a hostage release that always goes poorly,
letting some man disjoint me, this old
story we’ve been telling each other

for years and she says I wish we could
slip out and be smoothed out like taffeta
from a basement trunk, easy like
skipping rocks (in dreams) over water
so like glass there’s no good metaphor
for it, see, I’m fumbling

most everyday I’m clunky, un-melodic
in logic, I say, I let him slip the fish hook
through my cheek
She says look
how we punish ourselves
for this hunger.