[Associate Editor, Britt Bustos: "This poem takes a commonplace, although burdensome illness and transcends the explanation into a detailed map of how pain echoes throughout the body. Fang’s visceral details not only remind us of our fragile humanity that can be torn apart by discomfort and pain but also reminds us how important it is to see clearly."]

puss-swollen

headlights: 

 

dilations 

outlining of bone and yolk

transmuting; 

 

machete-deep

in the sockets

plugged in

unpretentious 

 

species asunder: 

the phantoms break flesh

from her calves 

reaching her ribs

abrading the cage— 

 

her framework seizes— 

 

then to her pupils 

her wounded metaphors 

 

tomb retina

scythe-deep

all faith lost 

in her neurons 

 

signal collapsed: 

terminal purgatory 

 

the postsynaptic

site ablaze with

panic 

 

infinite cells as persecuted and vain

as the host; 

 

can she see through

flu-veiled 

panes— 

 

light deadening

the bulb of the

eye sinking back 

into the cranial cavity

below the ego