Nina Corwin

Ligamentary, My Dear

Incision to be scheduled in bull's-eye red.
Enchanted scalpels side-by-side,
line up to make the cut un-kind.
They come to fetch (clip-clop) in step.

Poor fetal meat
And thee —
Take note: these B-flat blues won't do.
Not do at all. They got to go (they will).
By deft or switch.

There was Such time as joints unscrewed
like fruit jars. Sweet preserves inside.
Ginger, jalapeno. Marrow good for breadspread.
That was then.

Now they's stuck tight. Froze in mid —
adhesive buildup in the humerus.
Arrivederci, ball and chain,
ooops —

Socket's what I meant to say.
The White Coats claim it comes with age.
W/both ends burning.
Off to the calendar room.
We go.

Mark days in commas, boxes. Hours
plotted graphically (a nasty curve). The old one-two.
To the treadmill, toute de suite.

Leonardo's limbs are ticking on the body clock.
In after/ward — curdling, ricochet,
backroom piggies in a slab-row. Hoeing. Grunting.
Stages of undress. Of push-pull.

Push pin: in. The sinew: ouch.

* * *

86 (de-generate)

no more mostaccioli
the waiter says. eighty-six
chalked in blue
on the blackboard of absences
what? I say missing it
decibels low to inaudible : me
with my bleeding out battery
tough luck embargo
of tubules you
baffled umbilicus
mouth moving fury
of soundlessness
rough shod & sore saddled
gosh you say stammering gosh
when I point
at my hi-tech prosthetic
with needle on empty
the gibberish syllables
quaintly deranged as in
menu on margin
or password invalid (out-
dated) a bellwether
beckoning
onward my deafening
little oblivion sprung
from an echo-deep
well

*Both poems previously appeared in Forklift, "Ligamentray, My Dear" in Issue 23, Summer 2011, and "86 (de-generate)" in Issue 21, Fall 2009.

Nina Corwin is the author of two books of poetry, The Uncertainty of Maps and Conversations With Friendly Demons and Tainted Saints. Her poetry has appeared in From the Fishouse, ACM, Forklift OH, Hotel Amerika, New Ohio Review/nor, Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review and Verse and has been nominated for the Pushcart prize. Corwin is an Advisory Editor for Fifth Wednesday Journal. She lives in Chicago, where she is a practicing psychotherapist known for her work on behalf of victims of violence.