ISSUE 1 · FALL 2008
Copyright © 2009 Margaret Bashaar | Dig MARGARET BASHAAR She catches her ankle on rusted out holes in streetcar steps, impotent for all of a day now. Before she wraps her feet in onionskin, she sucks mud from her toes, rips the flesh off them with her teeth.
Fingers slide through her ribcage, cold, and she ties her hair to her wrists with sailor’s knots each night, and in the morning she cuts earthworms into eighths, drops them into buckets of water and swears each part can grow whole if she looks away long enough and makes a wish on each writhing piece.
Still she sinks through painted red floorboards, too thin at the elbows and too thick at the heels for baby’s breath. Ground untouched for days and boxes of shoes tumbling out of her closet like stones, she cuts herself off at the ankles, leaves her feet on hotel doorsteps among empty beer cans and the smell of blood, breathes in the weight of her feet and walks like they are still there.
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Margaret Bashaar's poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from such journals as Caketrain, The Pedestal Magazine, So to Speak, and Boxcar Poetry Review, among others. She edits the literary journal Weave Magazine and co-hosts the poetry cabaret The TypewriterGirls.