by Alicia Hoffman
I’ve killed myself a million times. Thin
nick of knife blade. Hatchet. Musket. Saw.
The metaphor goes: we are continuous. Re-
born with a new skin. Better armor, bullet
thick. And I’ve drummed the pelt. Tanned
so many versions of what I no longer am.
I mount the manikins on cedar planks.
I shellac my specimens. Dead-eyed. Blank
as bodies that will soon litter sea-floors
now that the 6th extinction is here. O,
singular creatures. Skeletal remains. O,
unique little birds. Born sans gene to fly.
I, too, have wrestled with the weight of a body.
I, too, have collapsed under a captor’s net.
My head an ornament hung like an object
on a pillager’s desk. My breath framed
as armature, pinned like a Morpho to velvet.
Yes, I’ve died a million deaths. I’ve set the jaw.
Dried the ligament. I am a fossil at the bottom
of the ocean. Where we will all go, I went.
About the Author:
Alicia Hoffman: Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, New York. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Rainier Writing Workshop and is the author of three collections, most recently ANIMAL (Futurecycle Press). Her poems have been published in a variety of journals, including Thrush, Radar Poetry, Trampset, The Night Heron Barks, Tar River Poetry, The Penn Review, Glass: A Poetry Journal, Typishly, One Art, and elsewhere. Find her at: www.aliciamariehoffman.com