Musculature

When I take the rock to your body,
its smoothness bears a river; my strokes
bear under your skin in the shape
of a river. Like the enchanneling

that was a river once. What murmured
encouragement meets these motions.
What's a riverbed to the rain filling
fall's early drought. What if the earth

stitched over its dead rivers like a body
fills itself with scar tissue, solid shale,
and—right there, a knot undone,
kink in the back smoothed to submission.

I could've been loved once. Let me,
for now, follow your deep fascia, dig
low and gently. All the work that a body
does not leave behind.

Paul Goudarzi-Fry received his MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop, and his microchapbook After the Hands of Another was featured in Ghost City Press's 2023 summer series. His work has been published in Alocasia, Reservoir Road, and Beyond Queer Words, among others. He lives in New Hampshire.