Rachel Grace Mussenden | The Mason | Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Rachel Grace Mussenden is a poet and recovering Beltway Brat born again as a Philadelphia native. She is a firm believer in long showers, grapefruit seltzer and talking to strangers. This is her second publication. Her previous published work can be found in The American Journal of Poetry.

Also by Rachel Grace Mussenden: Every Poem Starts in the Middle

September 2020

Rachel Grace Mussenden

The Mason

Caught inside my body I am loath to love anything. See here the barometer in the pocket of my back, my ball joints, hinges rusted even before rain. I wake up early. I dream of WD-40. If I could, I would open up my own flesh, play God with the lovingness of a tinker because in my mind there are no doctors; there are only offices and inhabitants of offices, who tell me not to panic and run a tongue depressor along my inner thigh. Can you feel this? Does this hurt? I can’t name the ache of it. I say no and leave without answers. I consider my hips a door jamb swollen in the humidity, and consider the man sliding through them, who feels a house collapsing and doesn’t mind. I thank him as the column of my spine collapses beneath his bands. He kisses me. Does this hurt? Yes, but — In bed, we wake up late. I dream of carpenters. He whispers into the eaves beneath my shoulders, asking about the weather. I tell him it’s raining.

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