Bathtime

I wrap her belly
with my arms,

feel for the
cracks, watch her

at bathtime to see
how she takes herself off,

layer by layer, to
unstitch her arms from

their sockets, to unbuckle
at her navel. I crawl inside

her chasmic form
that swallows, the guts

reaching, the intestines
roping my wrist.

Come home, they croon,
and I span her with my arms.

--

--

Tiffany Elliott
The Journal of Radical Wonder

Tiffany Elliott's (she/her) debut book, Bones Awaiting the Blaze, was awarded the 2022 Hillary Gravendyk Prize. She is asexual, neuroatypical, and disabled.