_______
Nacreous
Burr in sleeve, blister on earlobe, hazel
fleck in eye, there is a list
throughout the body of
what is no longer here.
The soul goes to the irritant, licks
it obsessively. If the tongue—the true
core of the self—licks long enough—
a pearly raw spot. The soul sleeps
on this. The soul sleeps
with her tongue for a pillow, hasping
hoarse sing-song all the sleepless
hours. And
the darkening tip
of the tongue on
brightening tenderness. Tongue
turning at the sound of absence.
Now nip to suck sweet fluid from the blister
on the lobe. Now sucks
out the nothing
of the splinter from the forearm’s
flesh. Tongue at the eyelash
forcing the lids open. A soul in the making,
the tongue is. Besotted with salt and
sweet. Appetite without origin, suppuration
that proves
the something of nothing.
________________
The Kernel, the Core
I would address you as my loss,
fetal and set apart.
You are, carefully, a hull into which
you nest yourself. Brown and fine
nutty and smooth and, yes,
you with your preternatural ear.
I would address what you hear.
I would hold you as my graven
image, tender at whose core
no one, ever, will touch.
But to witness is different than to
grasp.
The finest grain on you,
the pattern, the scent both
embryonic and redolent.
No one’s. Yet mine. A hull
as hollow as an armpit. Loss
forbidden to branch, always
to bud.
I would lift your woody
mouth to my breast and
know you are borne by
my resin.
Your difficult pulse
polished on the knot
of the seed. I need nothing
further. You turn to hear
nothing of it as you turn.
_______
Covering
You grow silver ragwort
for your hunger.
Is it edible? Is it
poison? You don’t
know. Not that this is
a story, but in a story
you do what you must do.
Instead
of biting down into the flesh
of the leaves
you paste them over your mouth,
now a furred silver mouth.
And then over eyes, ears,
nostrils, vagina, anus,
silver buds on the infinitesimal
apertures of the nipples.
Because any opening is a hunger.
You like your hunger’s fuzzy
silver-gray transformation.
It fills your slender belly.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Elizabeth Robinson is the author, most recently,
of Vulnerability Index, from Northwestern University
Press/Curbstone Books. Being Modernists Together is
coming out in late 2026 from Solid Objects. Robinson’s
work was published in the 2023 Pushcart Prize Annual
and the 2025 Best American Poetry.