Zwischen II and Zwischen III – Amaleena Damlé

Zwischen II

somewhere within an ache unfurls
and Eileithyia heralds a body – cresting,
muscle and breath puckered across
an undulating skeleton’s loss

somewhere within an ache unfurls
reverberations to swell cervix
and soul, straddling the quivering
membrane of now and before

somewhere within an ache unfurls
cleaving flesh from flesh, spilling
silvery stars over a blood moon,
orb of my womb, my child from me

somewhere within an ache unfurls
and from that ache you become

                ultramarine

Zwischen III

from breath to blade
I turn my body inside out
and when all the parts of me
are reassembled
needle through flesh
a trail of red dots remains
sliver of skin forever exposed
to life lived from the outside in

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Amaleena Damlé is a poet and an academic literary critic, who lives in Durham, UK. She writes scholarly and creative pieces about bodies and beings, and has poems forthcoming in After…, The French Literary Review and Sarasvati. Twitter: @AmaleenaDamle

Art: Art & Garden, an image by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2023. Twitter: @frede_kenter, IG: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle