Of Bodies Warred

Lorelei Bacht

Something of war passes 
through the pinhole of a body 

that makes another one, that makes 
another one: 

each body finds a complementary, 
a scar that fits. 

In the shadows of bodies warred, we 
grow like an orchard – the apple sings

the song of matricide, patricide, fratricide – 
each side murderous onto the other. 

With every turn, the need renewed to
calculate a percentage of oppression:  

a finger cut in time saves nine, and war 
is all we ever talk about, at the movies,

at school, on the dinner table, laid out, 
laid out – our meat and potatoes,

the body of the dead. I could travel
up the family tree for centuries, never

to find a place to rest: every branch 
contends – and here I am, 

the crooked-nosed timeline made flesh. 
I say kiss me. I say muddle me more.

Lorelei Bacht is a poet of complex European heritage living in Asia. A former political analyst and lobbyist, she has been using poetry to explore the universal, psychological, embodied nature of political violence through history. Her work has appeared / is forthcoming in Visitant, The Wondrous Real, Quail Bell, Fahmidan, Abridged Magazine, Odd Magazine, Postscript, PROEM, SWWIM, Strukturriss, The Inflectionist Review, Slouching Beast Journal, Hecate, and others. She is also on Instagram: @lorelei.bacht.writer and on Twitter: @bachtlorelei

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