by Cora Schipa
Cliffside
From the top I’m pink-scalped,
cowlicked, feather-fine. Keen to fluff,
split-ended. I half-dream digging a hole
in my left temple, reeling out
migraine’s scale-flash of pain.
Blot of ethanol and a new suit
render me numb-skulled, hard-headed,
done wrong, wrongdoing, evil-spun,
bloodthirsty, sacrosanct. Downright easy.
Uniform-clad, on the clock, I’m doll-eyed
pixie dreamboat at your service,
your very own hot-blooded bombshell monsoon,
waist apron-cut, a woman’s sliced smile.
Knock-kneed. Call me slut-faced
scapegoat, root rot, cyclopean
smacked around fantasy. After-hours
fishnet-snagged in a metallic slip,
nursing the ego of a spray-tanned Kappa.
Onscreen, I’m a pixelated gutter mouth
beauty machine. The truth: I’m a liar.
Caller ID Unknown. Ancient as the horseshoe crab,
plastic-sheen shell still stinking of factory.
I’m a taker, too. Like you, I always want
more. Hunger-struck, I’m all tongue.
Desperation beast, stippled starfish,
nerve-wracked. I know how a body
betrays, so I crave all the blade-edges
of life while I have it.
Lemons jagged with salt,
marsh water martinis, chili-pepper
sparkle of pain.
My heart speaks in stutters. She,
like me, insatiable. Glug-glugs beneath my
breasts—bulbous anemones on ocean rock,
plinked with raindrop nipples.
Thanks, I’ve been known to say, I grew them myself.
I’ve even got a belly button
with a winking diamond eye.
Insides all jellyfish-soft,
undulating tides of want.
I know there is little glory in needlessness.
But shame’s eroded my shoreline,
cliffs left raw against a rising sea wall.
I want to be secretless.
Done with the heavy
velvet curtain, I take a bow,
drop the act and splay out, let sun
reach all that’s tender.
My heart has no chambers
left to streamline, industrialize.
The muscle of my glottis,
indispensable. Accursed,
I grow curses, grow gills to reach
the bottom and resurface, glimmering.
I don’t believe in luck
but like God, I’ll wield it anyway,
world-soaked. Reach out.
Touch me.
Poet Cora Schipa (she/her) is a writer and poet pursuing an MFA at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is a poetry reader for Grist and the Assistant Managing Editor of Crab Creek Review. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Rust & Moth, The Shore, ONEART, Unbroken: Prose Poems, and elsewhere magazine, among others.
Artist Roger Camp (he/him) is the author of three photography books including the award winning Butterflies in Flight, Thames & Hudson, 2002. His documentary photography has been awarded the prestigious Leica Medal of Excellence and published in The New England Review, New York Quarterly and Orion Magazine. He is represented by the Robin Rice Gallery, New York.
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