Bartering: Day after Diagnosis

Poetry

“Bartering: Day after Diagnosis” by Cassie Garison

October 17, 2019 /

I will give you my horns, hooked

& taurean. I will give you my crown,

woven from rose-thorns and olive

branch, copper wire & shards

of glass. I have been collecting

shells: fastening them together

with scraps of twine, wind them tight

around my neck. They drag me deep

beneath a rabid sea. Other days:

I press each conch into my skin

let it sting like iron at the hip

of a cow.

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