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Hala Alyan: Of the MRI Images for My Abdomen

October 27, 2014 by PBQ

Crazily lit,
a swamp of white.

So the secret is I glow.

          Blush with dust and ephemeral lungs.

This is my architecture, mineral
and air, what I have always suspected:
I am clamorous. I am a

paper daughter.

Theater vessel, ovaries charming as nests.
Wraithlike
          masonry, grainy as sugar.

Disrobe me and I am a cotillion dress, bone white
crocus
                    and hungry as a milkweed.

Seven fences of lamplike
bones

I would like another name now, in Gaelic
                    or Sanskrit,
          meaning hushed or

the grain after fire.

I have earned it: the only edifice I own
and what astonishing
gratitude

to know that beneath and below and
          beyond—

think of sand covered briefly,
shockingly,
          by snow—

there is something cluttered, and beautiful.

Filed Under: Contributors 90, Issue 90, Poetry, Poetry 90 Tagged With: Contributors 90, Hala Alyan, Poetry, Poetry 90

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