ECTOPIC

As she tapped a needle into the ridge of my ear,
the acupuncturist told me how surgery can trap

cold in the body—the warmest and most quiet
parts of ourselves made loud under the fluorescence

of an operating room. I don’t feel cold as much
as I feel opened, as though I lost not just an organ

but a bet with some faceless collector. I am a purse
turned inside out. I am a mural tagged overnight,

something made more and less of itself. I don’t feel
like I lost a baby, I tell anyone who isn’t scared

of my grief. Just the dream of one, as if that
is somehow easier to bury. Unheld, unnamed,

just the foolish hope of you, and the audacity
of my joy spilling everywhere like that.

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