Poetry by Alexa Theofanidis

            ​  Bruce Guenter CC




Pressure Points

How all of our blood
crackles at once, my wrist
another blade riveted to 
the moon’s whim. In the 
garden, my palms distend, ready 
for a finch to wire itself 
to the flesh like a ghost, 
to smoke it in a silk song. 
Trees corkscrew themselves 
from my shadow, untrimming 
my touch. My body has 
many ways of breathing in 
beauty, & they all end 
marbleized, with gravity puckering 
the walls of my skin.





Portrait of A Lobotomized Woman, 1950 

My skull threads itself into the wind’s
neck like a pearl. You, runted. The world chokes

unprecious beginnings. Sky begins 
to shiver my fingertips to petals. You, runted 

miracle. When the doctor’s hands warble 
against my scalp, I keep my lips pressed

to this feeling, as my bones taper off 
into a silhouette, as the light sharpens 

my mouth to fit another tongue.

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Alexa Theofanidis is a writer based in Houston, Texas. Her work either appears or is forthcoming in Birdcoat Quarterly, perhappened mag, Lunch Ticket, Rising Phoenix Review, and elsewhere. Currently, she reads poetry for COUNTERCLOCK Journal and serves as the co-Editor-in-Chief of her school's literary journal, Imagination. 

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