Spinal

by Joyce Nancy

A quick twist of the neck, 
seven audible cracks. 
 
Bent over, liquid mind 
framed in skeleton, you bare
sharp vertebrae, one after the next
like a trail to something rooted  
thick in the earth of you, 
or thirty-three knots 
pushing out.
 
Scoliotic. The demon swims
along the curious curves 
of your insides. You are sick
with a fever that never leaves,
burnt on your inner eyelids,
ulcerated throat.
If you are trying to speak
I don’t know to whom.
 
Could your muscles stretch
thin enough to reach it?
If tendons snap
in the violent pursuit
will you keep reaching?
 
My silence is the cut 
of winter wind.
That severance.