Sara Ryan is the author of the chapbooks Never Leave the Foot of an Animal Unskinned (Porkbelly Press) and Excellent Evidence of Human Activity (The Cupboard Pamphlet). She was the winner of the 2018 Grist Pro Forma Contest, and her work has been published in or is forthcoming from Pleiades, DIAGRAM, Booth, Prairie Schooner, Thrush and others. She is currently pursuing her PhD at Texas Tech University.




Sara Ryan

Growing Bone





as you slept, I lay awake — staring at the water-stained ceiling tiles. I named the rain fox-like; it crept into your home and stayed there, watching from above. watching as I clawed at my arms. my insides buzzing with flies. I could hear the ocean sighing from your window. yells and sports cars and the oily screeches of tires 20 floors below. every year, you find an excuse to remind me. you nudge and I respond — a moth. I delete and laugh and my mouth fills with wings. every year, I learn something new about my body. every year, I grow another vertebra and it clicks when I walk. every year I cut the bones out and bleach them clean. you are always an excision. sometimes, I wonder what would have been, had we never met. had you seen me and forgotten my face. had we fallen in love with other people and you never touched me and we lived in other states and we dreamt sweet dreams and we lived.




Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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