M M Porter

On Craving

If picking a body part to borrow
for the night, I’d take your shoulder
blades ironed 

against my back. The bondage of another
body. Ingesting this want, I swallow another 

croissant & in Macy’s parking lot, I look
at lane markers
pinned to asphalt, 

how frequently they’re traversed.
That tire means four tires, & if every 

car’s weight can’t crush earth,
why’s absence so destructive? All
these leggings,

all this gravity & shower scrub, & still
nothing touches me on purpose. 

Scary what I’d give for a car accident:
even skin welded metal doesn’t feel like
paramedics compressing 

my chest. If I could be flower filled,
my breath would stingray every socket.

________________________________________________________________________________________

M M Porter is attending Ohio University to pursue her PhD in English with an emphasis in Poetry. She is a graduate of the MFA poetry program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Originally from Michigan, she continues to pursue the arts and hopes to one day teach creative writing with others who share her passions.