Necropsy by Vera Kroms


 
 
Soon, the always wing will fold,
and the doctor, summoned, will extract

a Prussian minuet from the sweet pocket
of my left breast. Sleeves, thickened

with old news, will arrest
their pleating, and the stomach, no longer

servant to the swamp, will lie
down with the ancients. My father hated

happy endings but adored
the architecture of what remains — the apple

after the worm, the cage
of pilings after the blitzkrieg,

the cavern of salt after
the oyster has fled its pearl.
 
 
Vera Kroms lives and writes in Boston, MA. She has degrees in mathematics and has worked as a programmer for many years. Her chapbook Necessary Harm was published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Colombia Journal of the Arts, Southern Poetry Review and others.