My nurse Trevor nicknamed
it Evil B,
and it ate me
alive, one bite
each night into my liver, T 10
and 12, more
when we giggled,
when the gin quit
working. Hunger increases
the speed of things,
especially nameless ones.
But slowness is the same
red button pushed
to call for help
or name anything we cannot
prove is air, earth or sea:
dark matter, Tuscany
yellow, God, conversion
therapy, that feeling eyes
convey in nighttime.
I felt it
invade me, a corkscrew
willow chewing
my plumbing, thinning
my floor bones. I knew
its name. I said it:
teratoma, arching to flick
my tail, stotting,
teratoma, stomping the oma,
stretching to launch
like a gazelle sprinting from
its wide, mephitic lust.
Ben Kline (he/him) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Author of the chapbooks SAGITTARIUS A* (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) and DEAD UNCLES (Driftwood Press, May 2021,) Ben received the 2021 Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry. A reader for The Adroit Journal, Ben’s work is forthcoming or can be found in THRUSH, The Holy Male, CutBank, Limp Wrist, DIAGRAM, Hobart, Impossible Archetype, A&U Magazine, and many other publications. You can read more at https://benklineonline.wordpress.com/.