Melissa Strilecki

End-Stop and Enjamb

—After Nicole Sealey

We hover at opposite ends,
the granite plane cold and hard.

Why do we grin like eager houses,
eyeing the strop on the wall?

Misshapen and unfinished
collection of pegs, we fit.

We are the flame set low
to simmer all day. Our eyes

turn fever bright, sifting the
broken bits. This is a calculus

of measured facts. But the
pendant light doubles: both

sun and inquisitor wresting
secrets from sheets of dough,

tacky on the stone. Secrets in
flesh and fur. I would flay you

to be inside your skin.

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Melissa Strilecki has spent the last several years raising small humans and recovering from a career in finance. Poetry is her first love, but she's working on a novel as well. She lives in Seattle.