Long Distance Larceny
It started when I mailed him slices of my fingertips in plain envelopes.
He suction cupped some to his torso like hungry leeches and rubbed
the rest against his skin until they disappeared like chalk. He, loving
me more, sent his entire pinky finger in a shoe box. I inserted it
like a tampon, not even needing to bleed. So I sent him molars to jingle
in his pockets like spare change, both my ears threaded on strings
to hang from his rearview mirror and once, when he was particularly
stressed, I sewed up a breast for him to squeeze. It was Christmas
when I received his white high-top, still on his leg, cracked off just below
the knee. In ink running up his calf was written, remember when we’d go
dancing just to go dancing? When I received a sagging manila envelope
via priority mail, it leaked and ran down the delivery man’s forearm
like sap from a tree. It was still pulsing as I tried to open it with no fingers
to break the seal. No teeth to tear through the paper. Now, I lay scattered
across his apartment, miles from my empty skull, and as his thumbs are in
my silverware drawer, his eyes bobbing in my fishbowl, all I can wonder
is if he notices, I haven’t swept my floor in weeks.
by Meghann Plunkett
Meghann Plunkett is a New York City based writer and performer. Her work has been published in national and international literary magazines including The Shop, Southword Press and Simon & Schuster’s new anthology, Chorus. She has been the artist in residence at Berklee College as well as an Acentos Writers’ fellow. She is the 2013 Paris-American Pushcart Nominee and has taught poetry everywhere from Yale University to halfway homes and sober living environments. She is a co-founder, producer and performer for the show Kiss Punch Poem: an official selection at the Chicago Improv Festival, the New York City Poetry Festival, the Hawaii Improv Festival and the Boston Comedy Arts Festival.