by Mela Blust

father, you gave me one x chromosome.
long feminine face, strong jaw, broad shoulders, hooked nose.
greek name i never identified with.

i have used needle and scalpel,
razor and brick to chisel these cheekbones
into something i could call my home.

home like a hollowed-out ribcage, borers tunneling within.
home like a burning building,
structural integrity jeopardized from within.

i have changed my name
trying to escape the bony fingers of this nomenclature,
still your marrow haunts my bones.

like parallel lines,
coplanar and equidistant;
i ran to you, and from you, and to you.

i wonder now if you’d recognize the body you bestowed me,
rebuilt and reshaped from apple to core, from seed to stem to skin;
like knife, like shovel. how heavy the family tree.

Mela Blust is a poet and weightlifter with a strong voice and strong arms. Her work has been nominated for Best Of The Net and the Pushcart Prize many times, and has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Rust & Moth, The Nassau Review, and more. #poetswholift