Blair Martin

Editor’s Note: The first poem in this collection touches on body dysphoria & eating disorders. Please read with care.

Self-Portrait at 13

I befriend Ana

in a cookbook, whose

cheery print recommends

800 a day for ladies.

I, though no lady, round down.

Knit potholders to avoid the stab.

I fascinate on my two wrist

bones, pecking like a hatchling

still sticking with shell. Shame

worms in as I count each calorie’s

stitch. I have no sense that I shelter,

without feather or flight, in twigs.

The Bodies of the Dead

luxuriate as they decay.

Unhurried, no traffic cones

derail their commute.

They endure no disputes with neighbors

over the placement of fences.

Instead, they spill open in welcome.

Bacteria gorges on blue-black

flesh, the worm curls cozy

in an empty eye socket.

No one cuts them isolated

with a sharp judging glance.

They constantly commune

as their molecules whisp elemental:

the green in a blade of grass,

the taut raindrop before it falls,

the mushroom’s damp bloom.

When you trace the death date

on a tombstone, gather yourself

in envy. The living, alone, in the times

in which we find ourselves, suffer

when roots rot. The dead are already rising.

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Blair Martin grew up on a small farm in Lancaster County, PA. They received their PhD in Clinical Psychology from Bowling Green State University and teach at Joliet Junior College. Their work has appeared in/is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, New Feathers Anthology, Redrosethorns Magazine, Knee Brace Press and elsewhere.