Transfiguration

Newspapers say it’s ‘the astronomy of our bodies’—some
nonsense about overexposure to sunlight or too many
stars. But I think they just don’t know what to say when
our loved ones explode into supernovas. One young
couple, posed for a human-interest piece, saw his arms and
her legs flap into orbit. They survive mostly intact dragging
their losses, small galaxies, where their limbs used to be. In
the cover photo they stand together watching the sky, the
lift of their chins just grave enough. Other stories suggest
it’s something in the tapwater, radium or extra fluoride,
percolating in the bloodstream and mingling with plasma
that morphed an old woman’s clavicle to a Moka caffé
pot handle. People pored over her story. Her posture on
the stovetop was impeccable. Every day, news outlets
interview another doctor reporting an unusual spike in
cases of Transfiguration. They say it’s a disaster of bodies
trying to be what they’re not. But maybe they are merely
bodies longing to be stars.

Anastasia Nikolis is an Assistant Professor of English at St. John Fisher University. Her academic research focuses on confession and intimacy as linguistic constructions in post-1945 American poetry. In her creative writing, she explores the intersections of visual art, place, and the body. You can find her work in Stone Canoe, Arkansas International, The LA Review of Books, and The Adroit Journal.