The Body Compass
       

            True north is the nook behind your knee
where my patella nests like the skull

            of a small, burrowing animal, safe
                        beneath heft of hamstrings cleaved

like mollusks
            to femur. To love

the net of capillaries cast
            across your skin, the drunken mass

                        of liver, spleen, your brain sputtering
            prayers through bone,

is to know
            I will lose you.

            True, the stunted wingspan
of our twinned clavicles

                        bows toward the window, the body's
            white breath on the glass.

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Copyright © 2017 Erin Rodoni All rights reserved
from Body, in Good Light
Sixteen Rivers Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission