Post-Op

Even her hands became gentle
like sunlight. And on the operating table

her heart stopped 11 times,
she begged (thump thump thump)

for a bloody mouth, fluid to
spill over the cracks between her molars.

She suckled her inner cheek between beats, all flesh,
the way she did when my mother was born.

Silence, a relief.

If chewing is a sign of life
then I’ll pray to bubblegum

when all is said and done, I’ll brush her teeth,
and she will fossilize like seashell.

Chloe Cook is an undergraduate student attending Northern Kentucky University. She currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for the student-run creative magazine, Loch Norse Magazine. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Tule Review, Oakland Arts Review, Sledgehammer Lit, Stoneboat Literary Journal, and elsewhere. Her first chapbook, entitled Surge, is forthcoming form dancing girl press in fall 2021. She currently resides in the NKY region.