My boxers are often ill fitting
because my thighs

span so much
of the Appalachian trail.

My partner loves my body without hesitation.

Though, if I’m being honest, this body
could probably use some

more modification,
but won’t get any

more than it’s already gotten.
From here on out, I will take up

the same amount of space in Appalachia,
as in the hypothetical heart
 of the sand hills

Impermanent and already decomposing,
our bodies are just

stardust this,
stardust that.

♥

Once, long before we met,
my partner asked a butcher

for a butchering position. And was told,
meat is a family business.

When I was a kid
animals were unzipped in my kitchen,

naked and blood-raw
strewn on black trash bags—

all those hind legs disassembled
and vacuum packed
 for colder days.

And I think what a perfect
family this will be,

me and my partner:
so red, and constantly sharpened.

♥

Just before my double mastectomy
my partner asked if the surgeon would open

me deep enough to see
my heart. And though

my ribcage was left
in its original arches,

I imagine a knife blade
is what has come closest to my core—

a violent scraping of breast
tissue from muscle,

that still aches
months and months later.

♥

This Valentine’s day, we spin
another allusion

toward anatomical hearts,
and all I can conjure

is my partner’s latest
echocardiogram,     bumpy
 and upside down.

We love each other so much
we are trying to keep

this life going
despite all this simultaneous body—

all this ridiculous flesh.