I want a poem that reassembles the body

I want to feel an overload of metaphors
running from eyes to tongue to fingers,
later, have your coarse voice roll them up
midair, in my dreams I am always having
them melt inside my mouth, sweeter than
burnt sugar and cinnamon, at times better
than stolen kisses, the pleasure of birthing
and parading them, these explosive children
that cease to be mine alone once they leave
my mouth, a child is a vessel for dreaming,
you whisper, a name that carries, the heart
of a pitted fruit, a house to hold crumbling joy,

except everything with a pair of teeth and a box
of unshot bullets feels right yet a shallow sting.

• Meet the Author
• Latest Posts

Clara Burghelea

Clara Burghelea (she/her) is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her second poetry collection Praise the Unburied was published with Chaffinch Press in 2021. She is Review Editor of Ezra, An Online Journal of Translation.

• I want a poem that reassembles the body