POST-CRANIOTOMY

                    by Sarah Katz 

You appear dehorned
with two holes on your head—   

an unsuspected devil
newly redeemed. Your eyes

stay closed. Seated on the bed,
I watch your broad face shrink

into a new country.
Your forehead perspires.

Under the plate of your chest,
your red heart sinks and rises,

body closed, motionless.
The unknown depths there

bother me, so I superimpose
the idea of your eyeballs

onto the fact of your face.
For a moment, you stare back,

I think, black ponds trickling
into my own. But it is me

staring from the internal mirror,
​lost without a map.
​

photo by Leanne Bowers

Sarah Katz writes poetry, essays, and book reviews.  Her work appears or is forthcoming in MiPOesias, Public Pool, Redivider, RHINO Poetry, Rogue Agent, and The Rumpus. She earned an M.F.A. in poetry from American University, where she received the Myra Sklarew Award for her thesis. She has also been awarded the 2015 District Lit Prize and a residency at Vermont Studio Center. Her poetry manuscript, Country of Glass, was named a finalist by Robert Pinsky for Tupelo Press's 2016 Dorset Prize. Sarah lives with her husband, Jonathan, in Fairfax, Virginia, where she works as the Publications Assistant at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs. She is also Poetry Editor at The Deaf Poets Society www.deafpoetssociety.com.