With a Diamond Knife

No escaping the pinch
and rapture of living.
Across my back, a jagged row
of rotten teeth clenched shut.
I had caught the sun
in the melanin of my skin.
Now nothing left but truant cells
floating lazily in formalin.
But I was here,
stopped mid-death,
dripping pitch like honey
from the cleaved hive.

Dara-Lyn Shrager is the co-founder and editor of Radar Poetry. She holds an MFA from Bennington College. Her poems have appeared in Barn Owl Review, Salamander, Yemassee, The Greensboro Review, Zone 3, and Harpur Palate, among others. Recently, she was a finalist for the 2014 Better Prize in Poetry from Better Magazine. Her chapbook, The Boy From Egypt, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009.