By Chelsea Eckert

            I.

They are soft globes which enclose a diamond-edged
population. Knives and grotesque variations on sex
tether your hands to your pockets. You may no longer
mother your teenaged movements.

            II.

You find it in women’s razors. You find it in the
way the rain slaps windows. In squatting dogs and
claustrophobia. You find it on the bus ride to work,
and that is the most fearful time.

            III.

And that fear propels you to the pill, which is the
color of innards. So: visceral recovery. So: serotonin
as a messenger boy, muddy, stormed-on, stomped-on,
smiling under his helmet, telling you to stand down,
stand down, it is fine.

            IV.

Every seven years your body’s cells are sent to the
front lines, and you will recognize none of them after
that — not the cells, not the years.