Poem
Taxonomy
by Kirsten M. Holt
When I was born I was all fawn—
cloven toes, antlered and bent back
throat to the stars—but my tongue
marked me mollusk; my speech full
of brine. I didn’t know whether I was bird
or scaled, would feel around my torso
yoga-bellied in cobra pose. But when a boy
first touched my breasts I became owl-feathered
and my mother could no longer drag a brush
through my feral hair. Wild child,
my hands lost themselves in math equations but curled
around the chalice like a scorpion’s
segmented tail. I would fold my orchid legs at the ankle,
swing my hips like a bell (like my mother’s
maiden name). All my lovers I named like catkins
and my flesh grew tangerine. I came like the bellowing
of bulls, unstrung as snake’s jaws—I thought myself Maenad,
terrible and beautiful, until you tore through me
with wolf teeth, told me I was wooden and damp, hyena-skinned
and libertine. I want you to open me
like the rind of citrus, crack my wicker breastplate
and pluck the walnut heart, my cavities
smooth as almonds. Dissect me, let me know
when you hold my egg in your palm
am I reptile or avian?
Kirsten Holt is a second-year graduate student of poetry at the University of Central Florida. Her chapbook “Overwintered” was the winner of the 2010 Annual Chapbook Contest and is available from Yellowjacket Press. She has served as managing editor for The Florida Review, and reads for Sweet: A Literary Confection. Kirsten enjoys full glasses of wine, knitting, and the Oxford Comma. Recent work can be found in the Louisville Review.
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