Pre-op
by Fox Rinne

I google how long after surgery can I have you 

in my mouth and take my favorite

answer. As long as we keep

my heart low, my blood quiet,

we can still sate ourselves in the aviary

of my body. Spoon your thumb

past my teeth. Brush my neck

to steer the honey down. Would you, 

if I asked,

run your tongue along the stitch of me

like sealing a letter? I know 

the body my body 

aches for. I go to write a list of what’s lost

in transition, but it stays empty. 

In a dream, I doe-eye the knife

and your hands hold my wrists 

over my head. I decide in the new year

I am never waiting. Even now,

before the scalpel, before the stupor,

my chest 

is the cuttlebone

hanging in your cage, 

thinning as you sharpen 

your ripe beak.

​

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Fox Rinne is a poet living on occupied Lenape land. His poems can be found in BOOTH, Anomaly, Baest, Birdcoat Quarterly, and elsewhere.