Poetry by H. Lee Coakley

              Lorraine Adeline. CC




whatever you want to call me is fine

Say: aren’t you interested  in having children?
I could never imagine not getting a period.

Say - it only lasts five years, but I can take it out any time I like.
Don’t say - I like it like this.

Don’t mention pregnant word-rolls in your mouth 
like rotted melon &

woman bleeds thick ribbons, 
expands like a waxing crescent.

Don’t say you got a device, that isn’t a magic wand, sure,
but isn’t not 

a magic wand - 
an incantation against milk & cleave & cry.

I can get it out any time I like.

Pull out she, try on they. 
Tell them,

listen: the hollow of the E
doesn’t change

one body,
what remains

when light breaks on my kitchen table,
it births.





What lives in the body while the body is vacant
(CW: Mention of eating disorders)


I ask her: What about the baby food makes it easier?
She tells me: When I don’t have to chew it, it’s not real.

                                        *

This body is a pupil.
I am studying her through the screen,

studying, everyday 
a new selfie of the thigh, 

the waist, the neck.
She stitches them into a gallery,

stitches a needle and thread into 
the arm where the scar is,

can’t sleep without dreams of 
red spaghetti.

Can’t eat, can’t stop,
can’t gain, can’t lose,

can’t live in the body, 
live in the body.

What lives in the body 
while the body is vacant.

              What does it know - this jaw,
this vein, this cellulite.

              What’s your story, is a classic
first date question.

               Her body learned to question
first dates.

               Learned to hide how many packages of
 baby food stay on the shelf,

                in case of emergency,
 emergence of the underfed memory.

                In case the pictures yield no feedback, 
the thread lost, 

dropped on the way 
from fork to tongue -

 a gummed question 
dangling like spit 

from the corner of her wet mouth.
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H. Lee Coakley (they/she) is a Queer poet & nutritional healer currently based in Brooklyn, NY. They hold a BA from New York University & an MSPH from Johns Hopkins University. Their work has been featured in Lavender Review, Red Eft Review, Utterance Journal, The Voices Project, Blueshift Anthology & The Mad Farmer Reading Series. 

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