I am the fractured glass wing of a pinned butterfly, 

smothered in its flutter.

I am the pungent nonenal of a taxidermic lion, 

poached in mid-prowl.

I am the peroxide pustule oozing across the forehead

of a shrunken doll.

Captive in a Punch and Judy show;

the maggots are my jury. 

My strings, a testament:

I am an unwilling conduit, a meat-suit

served chilled upon a steel stretcher; 

Incarcerated, on display, 

shrouded in the third-hand smoke 

of stale breath— 

An aching tinnitus. 

My limp arms stare back. 

Wool stuffing binds my chest

coagulates and strangles,

vacuum seals the brag of my heart;

Milky surface rippling

as my intestines flail unconvincingly. 

My flesh is formed of wet clay; 

I am oozing, exuding 

downwards.

I am soft ricotta teeth, 

the rendering tallow of missing fingerprints,

an Unidentified Doe— 

My body is unclaimed. 

Featured Image Credit: Daniel Jensen / Unsplash