By m.l. bach
The old woman looks at my young body
from her place at the care home breakfast table,
and I think of her skin ripening underground,
pre-pollinated, pre-flowered,
to fruit in her coffin—
she looks expensive in there,
adorned with pearls and gold, dead
and therefore perfect.
I think of her skin softening so milk white bones
begin to emerge from her perfumed flesh. I picture
the way it melts into the cream silk beneath her
body, eaten gently away by sweet-smelling
maggots, hungry for transformation and rot,
first her skin, then strung muscle and pink organ.
I serve her dinner tray and smile,
ask if there’s anything else she needs.
I picture the way her face will look without eyes.
This Broken Body: A Portrait of Deformity by Brett Stout
About the Author
m.l. bach is a poet from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work has been published in Ninth Letter, Quiddity, and the Denver Quarterly. She's a third-year poetry student at the University of South Carolina's MFA program, and she is currently one of two poetry editors of Cola Literary Review.
About the Artist
Brett Stout is an artist and writer originally from Atlanta, Georgia. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and paramedic. He creates mostly controversial artwork usually while breathing toxic paint fumes from a cramped apartment known as “The Nerd Lab.” His work has appeared in a vast range of diverse media, such as art and literature publications by NYU and Brown University.