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I Haven’t Masturbated in Five Days
for Fear of Crying
her eyes closed the way my eyes sometimes close when I reach a hand
between my thighs pretend they’re someone else’s fingers that slide
the unsexiest pair of panties I own to the side of a lip her neck
outstretched the curve of her trachea like the bend of a hipbone
that peeks above the waistband of low-rise jeans her mouth open
—no agape— the same as the women on my computer screen
when they scream in what I’m supposed to believe is wonder
her face pale & older than mine maybe a few years possibly decades
—she’s ageless— her body still the way unmoving in my bed
unable to sleep again I picture her still when I close my eyes remember
how I sat stiff as frozen meat in the driver’s seat of a borrowed truck
the passenger side unrecognizable after she sped through the red light
& caused what the police called a t-bone collision & again I call my father
Yes he says she died she was dead
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I Haven’t Masturbated in Five Days
for Fear of Crying
twenty-seven shots sent straight
to the deleted photos album
because my ass looks too wide from above
my belly too pale with the lights on
my left boob droops like thick paint
on a canvas when I try to pose sideways
when I lie on my back they fall so far apart
he could eat off the level surface of my sternum
still I’m the one who’s hungry & I want
to send him something sexy
but my cellulite won’t cooperate
so I contort my body into angles
any yoga teacher would be proud of
phone in one hand the other near my mouth
or covering my pussy because mother told me
that men prefer subtlety & I’ve played
poker before—I know better than to show
my hand so I snapfilter&crop
until I’m an unrecognizable sack of
bones & tits nipples taut
a shade the most unnatural of pinks
From Hunger Mountain Issue 23: Silence & Power, which you can purchase here.
Art by Sam Flora, curated by Dana Lyons.
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[av_one_half]Eloisa Amezcua is from Arizona. Her debut collection, FROM THE INSIDE QUIETLY, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón. A MacDowell fellow, she is the author of three chapbooks and founder/editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry. Her poems and translations are published in New York Times Magazine, POETRY, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and others. Eloisa lives in Columbus, OH, and is the founder of Costura Creative. [/av_one_half]
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