anatomy of the dollhouse inside a head built of matchsticks

by Ruth Baumann

For a place to exist
it must be inhabited by an idea.
We were a place.

If bodies are suitcases then
they are also roads. I dream
you try to touch me &

I recoil. My brain pulls itself
into chopsticks
& feeds me memory.

If science & poetry both exist
to dictionary lost bones. If
science & poetry

both exist. If we
still exist, separately. If
I dream tonight

that I can’t stop touching your face
Then what. Then what
then what then what.

*

Ruth Baumann currently lives in Richmond, Virginia, but will be starting her MFA at the University of Memphis in the fall. She has poems in The Dirty Napkin, WordRiot & Toad, as well as forthcoming work in Kill Author & PANK. She also has two excellent cats.

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