LEAH DUNHAM

Doppler

One long finger snakes through fissures
in the skull, weaving its black trail, flagging.
Pulses are symphonic, still not caught by muscles
             longer in the limbs
contracting in stasis.
The drumming is made tight.

The heart beats quieter. No,
the heart
opens in mouths.

A new phalanx, breathing
cuts itself into nervous sections.

The machine’s anthem passes over cortex, sound
waves back and forth,
             but there is artillery in the vise.

One is given a word. One is told that
this is what happens. Meanwhile,
two bloods go on colliding in the chambers,

located as they are in the swamp
of the torso.
                   Only the knowledge
ratchets itself into spiked capstans.

Sleeping, I grow wings or a back lattice.
The muscles whelked,
I reconstruct. My eyelashes net together.
              Skin works down to pelvis, its silk knots jutting.

At the very least
 
I am welding a second self, still
tangled in the first.