The Body as Quantum Entanglement

This
            is what it means to be a
body,
            blood streaming down

thighs
            in early morning light,
leaving
            a Rorschach image pressed there

in red,
            the wings of another possible
body
            released into imagination—

the body
            holding itself tightly. The body
aching
            to open, to let go. How can

the body
            soothe itself to ease this ache?
How
            can it remember the slack in-

breathing
            feeling of no-pain, the gift of pain’s
absence?
            It must try to remember

itself
            as the motion of memory
leaves it,
            wet and warm and unstudied—

the body
            diverging from itself, another
branch   
          in the intricate delta of possibility.

Phoebe Reeves earned her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, and teaches English at the University of Cincinnati’s Clermont College in rural southern Ohio. Her poems have appeared in The Gettysburg ReviewHayden’s Ferry ReviewForklift OH, Phoebe, and Best New Poets 2018.  

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