Kathleen Buchholz

you did not make it quick. 

There was no knife to scrape my bones, 

—no knife to puncture my flesh,

It was bruises, it was blue, it was black,

It was ugly. 

My wounds sank deep, pinning me in my plot 

They twisted my insides, turned my stomach to stone.

jagged rock jutting from flesh,

Not marble—nor onyx, but coarse, unsightly grey.

The crudeness, the cruelty of my body hidden.

For I am murdered!—yet you live.

you and your brothers like you—the blameless, the named

Who trespass through our...