I was a piece of quilted lace edible seaweed a small cavity an order of crus-
taceans I refused the mouth refused the mannered baby refused seven
similar pairs of legs
 
Of, relating to or being subatomic witchcraft their tissues in high frequen-
cy
Their products denote glands secrete in vestibules directly source electron
surgery A contradiction an algebraic hand-job medicine for the small areas
 
An error with a cutaway Having irregular patches of shavings
Rubber thrown in a scalene game
A bee in the mouth A single opening ringed with tentacles     rust and salt
 
Horizontal and non-linear a distant cup-shaped body
A mass of trees      I’ve felled    revealed in the distant     shells
 
 
Wasted botanies long latitudes developed separately
Taxonomic babies in dust wiped their edges to fit neatly
Capable poised on the base of a leaf
 
In its daughter cells a bow-tied snake acapella
Delirium of decrees and doctrines      fallen      ridiculed     phylum
Its bark and bone in the gristle of embrace
Rolled up like a thick cuticle
 
 
 

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Melissa Eleftherion grew up in Brooklyn. She is the author of huminsect (dancing girl press, 2013), prism maps (dusie kollektiv, 2014), Pigtail Duty (dancing girl press, 2015), and several other chapbooks and fragments. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, Bukowski Erasure Poetry Anthology, Delirious Hem, Dusie, Entropy, Finery, Manifesting the Female Epic, Mom Egg Review, Open Letters Monthly, Poet as Radio, So to Speak, & TRUCK. She works as a librarian with Mendocino County Libraries, and created, developed, and currently manages the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange. Follow her @apoetlibrarian & apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.