Female Epidemic

Nothing in the world
is like a man’s forearm,
that knotted muscle of firm limb
resting out a car window,
lounging on table top,
kneading flesh or cutting wood.

But then there is the problem
of a man’s shoulder blade,
slicing through cotton,
moving like a cobra under covers,
its fine hard bone visibly shifting,
committing crimes, drumming out
I’m strong, I’m strong, I’m strong.

Some days there is the dilemma
of an Adam’s apple leaping about in the throat
and my need to arrest and observe it
under feverish palm
or swallow it whole,
digesting its severity, its sex.

The real sickness is susceptibility
to the wicked pelvic bone—
prehistoric tusk emerging
from the hip like a map,
reading here, this way, I beg you
beneath swim trunks or nude,
the shape of a gull mid-flight.

Katie Fesuk

A Massachusetts native now residing in Georgia, Katie Fesuk teaches English in Atlanta and serves as Creative Writer in Residence for the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project. Her most recent work can be found in Stirring, Wicked Alice, The Red River Review, and The Healing Muse; other work is forthcoming in Atlanta Review.