today i look the half-pig
in its eyes entering
the cooler         it stares      
from the icy lower shelf
& asks               what i am       
grateful for       fragile things
end up in pieces back here
& pieces           end up
inside us           i am open at
every point      all pore
all milky eye   all blood-
filled glove      i shuck
brine straight into ex-
posed veins     salt bodies
absorb bodies    i break
a hinge             find tiny & red 
& stunned with cold
crabs                alive inside
the oyster        alive inside
itself    i know because it 
was closed       before  
i cracked it      wearing their bones
on the outside they are easy
to break           we are all exposed
here     parts of everyone
end up              in the disposal
it takes years to collect us
back from the drain
Marina Greenfeld is a poet from Southwest Florida and Central North Carolina. Her work has been published in Pleiades, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Cream City Review, and others. She holds an MFA from the University of Mississippi and works in scholarly publishing in New York.
 
                    
                 
        
    