2: Jack Cooper

​Scattershot
 
I made a corpse from my ex-boyfriend
after realising I wanted you
and days spent with you, days spent basking
in your easy presence.
 
I slit his stomach, stretched open
the smile in his skin,
bent his ribcage outwards into impotence,
so I could study the decadent coils
of his intestines,
the rich lustre of his liver,
so I could read his entrails
for traces of you,
traces of our potential.
 
I turned his knuckles into dice,
cast and consulted them,
shaved his scalp, hurled hair against wind
and scrabbled to interpret the lines
and intersections of their landing.
I tore away his shoulder blades, scoured them
clean of meat
to give oracle bones, into which
I carved my questions,
fuelled fire ‘til they buckled
and grew cracks, pale slivers
against charred black,
giving glimpses of an answer, glimpses of us,
glimpses of our future
in the bodies of my past.