Poetry: These Are the Witness Marks by Moira J.

By Moira J. | September 1, 2017

Moira J. has written a visceral love poem with “THESE ARE THE WITNESS MARKS”—full of bodytalk and imagery that burrows under your skin, makes your back itch. Notice the goosebumps, the old salt, the zodiac mouth, but also the lover and the nervous ticking we all have heard when waiting in our own “shy bedroom.” Moira has made for us a poem with surprising balance between powerful bodies, and tender desire.

THESE ARE THE WITNESS MARKS

on the body of my lover—outlines

and discolorations

where ghost-limbs

and phantom-talks

might’ve inhabited,

but now have been exiled

into our bathtub where she

floats, undisturbed. Goosebumps

occupy her thighs like raised

fists through

worn-sweaters—even when

I dry her skin,

she still tastes of

marzipan and old salt.

And of course, fear still resides

in my ribcage like fettered rabbits

before the snare snaps closed,

of how the immensity of her

zodiac mouth entraps my

existence. Her loud body

ticks like grandfathered gears,

or a bomb,

in our shy bedroom.

The storm of her awaits

the window to be

slammed open, swallowing

cumulus bodies and spitting them

onto our sheets: new and old

ponds that could not come

from a mouth like mine.

Moira J.

moira j. is a writer of Dził Łigai Si'an N'dee descent. They were the winner of the 2018 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize and were Frontier Poetry’s 2019 Frontier New Voices Fellow. They are published/forthcoming in The Shallow Ends, PRISM International, and Black Warrior Review. They currently live with their partner in the occupied Massachusett homelands of Nutohkemminnit (Greater Boston, Massachusetts). Their debut poetry collection, “Bury Me in Thunder” (January 29, 2020) is out now with Sundress Publications. You can find more of their work at www.moiraj.com, and on Twitter @mxmoiraj.