John Liles is a vertebrate, poet, science writer, and living heterotroph. He is an MFA candidate in the Brown University MFA program. His work has been published, or is forthcoming, in Arcadia, inter/rupture, Gulf Stream, and at Omniverse.us. His poetry has also been chosen for the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Award. Send thoughts of small animals to john_liles@brown.edu.
Alternative content
Cushions become cuspid
valves. What comforts later
allows. Endothelial cell-lineage,
the heart is its own
hesitation.
*
Some muscles aren’t
absolute. You reach into
a reflex and allow
reversal.
Calories uncounted,
turns out progress
is stalling
what you’ve swallowed.
Chase after your
reflection and feel
less.
*
What once was is still
reachable, an outline
you’ve soured over.
Indelible and spilled, you
abrade the paper,
peel another top-pulp.
But it’s still stained.
Your next start
stung deeper.
*
Translocating
in lower somite-stages
establishes skeletal muscle
starts and skin rises.
Precursors with end-points
already determined—clock
and notch toward appropriate
stitching.