despite the avoidance of red meat
as big as the tip of a pencil they say
of the metal piece that’ll sit in the tit
does anyone still use pencils
to document, equate, or approximate?
some breasts look cloudy on machines
markers help point the way through
when weather in breasts changes
metal markers stay the same
like tits they come in different shapes
to mark time if not the moment cells go rogue
each time a new one is inserted we photograph
a love letter to the mammaries: just in case
to live is to be encased
you say: like sausage or offal
you know i hate the word “offal” and wished
to go my whole life without writing about it
as condemned criminals were led off to cells
mobs used to throw offal at them
what would you like for your last meal? they’re
asked to assuage the executioner’s guilt
like most mugshots, there are no smiles
in the pictures we take
no visible guilt over what was eaten, sipped
or smoked, only scars
i tell you being vegetarian is a way of life
avoiding alcohol is just plain hard
you ask: how many pictures will we take
before it’s time to give up the bra
as big as a sesame seed i say of the tiny
titanium clip replacing a nebulous tissue snip
a 3.2 mile path of 110 mile per hour winds*
—for Amber Gray
………….when the storm knocked the electricity out
i ran to 7-eleven to get ice and placed chile verde
………….in coolers as if in a tabernacle.
people drove on sidewalks because hundred-year-old
………….trees choked the streets. on clean paper
………….i wrote: things to do when you’re not in love…
the silence of having but not having washing machines
………….and water heaters hung around
like ice in January. night after night stars prevailed.
chiles that didn’t fit in coolers defrosted in a pool
………….of cool green water.
in a pandemic the barrio is everything.
i charged my phone in the truck and read: a twister
………….touched down in Chicago…people rented
U-Hauls, pried open stores, and took what they wanted.
trees crushed roofs and windshields. electrical wires
………….hung like vines, hid like snakes.
my neighbor and i mapped out a route for the dogs.
mi mamá no recuerda the weather
………….when i was born. just as i’ve forgotten
the darkness and light from inside her.
………….summer before last we raced flames and smoke
through mountains, through La Veta Pass before it became
unpassable. the pictures look beautiful, absent of fear.
weeks later i drove from borderlands to Chicago
………….con chile verde, or mira soles, or ‘sunlookers’
………….………….frozen in coolers.
after the storm my neighbor made a lemon garlic kale salad.
i cooked chiles en salsa de tomate, toasted tortillas.
………….and we ate at separate ends of a wooden deck.
*five tornadoes touched down in the Chicago area on August 10, 2020
Marcy Rae Henry is a Latina born and raised in Mexican America. She has lived in Europe and Asia and traveled through the Middle East on a motorcycle. Her writing has been longlisted, shortlisted, honorably mentioned, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears or is forthcoming in The Columbia Review, PANK, Epiphany, The Southern Review, and The Brooklyn Review, among others. DoubleCross Press will publish a chapbook of her recent poems.