Spring 2009, Volume 6

Poetry by Eric Morago

Like a Hot Knife Through Butter

We had been talking about our desire
to try sexual bloodletting. It was his knife;
I went first, and it was the most intimate moment
I have ever known
                                  —From a text message

He kisses her skin and she bleeds fireflies.
Tearing off their wings, he makes
her a pair of earrings and compliments her
on how they bring out the demons in her eyes.

Finally someone who understands me, she thinks
as all the stars waltzing in her head supernova
and begin to break
dance to the drum machine in her chest.

Cutting into his own flesh like an architect,
he designs the means to love her from the inside
out and presses their wounds together like sucker fish.

This is how galaxies are created, he coos,
grinning like a werewolf before a full moon,
like a serial slasher sharpening his blade,
like Zeus come down the mountaintop
to show her what lightning tastes like.
       It tastes of steel—
is her last thought before sleep.

In the morning he leaves her
with less than when he found her
and a note on the nightstand that reads,
Goodbye, in strokes of red.

Open Heart Surgery

Cut me open, she says,
bringing his stethoscope hands
up to her chest. Listening

with his fingers he expects
to feel thunder, but can only
make out a murmur.

This concerns him.
He takes out his scalpel.
Her skin is lace peeled back

revealing the anatomy
of every past relationship.
He is surprised how easy it is

to undress her. Lying there
under his examination, she
points to her heart, and says,

these scars, I tell myself,
are learned. Make me forget.
She begs him. He inspects

the muscle, the abundance
of scar tissue surrounding it,
then satisfied, closes the incision.

Why didn't you fix it? She asks.
He wishes he could convince her
that it's no accident the heart

resembles a clenched fist,
built to take and give a beating.
But he doesn't. He can tell

she's not much of a fighter.
Instead he refers her to a
plastic surgeon, and says,

When he's through, even you
won't be able to recognize it.


BIO:  Eric Morago is in the MFA Creative Writing Poetry Program at California State University Long Beach. His poetry has appeared in Verdad, California State University's Literary Journal- RipRap, as well as in Carving in Bone: An Anthology of Orange County Poetry, published by Moon Tide Press. He is very active in the Los Angeles and Orange County performance poetry scene and has competed in poetry slams.