Cartilage

by Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad

I scan the cartilage, bending tissue blue

through a New England coast, flexib-le
mon-itor of ocean martyrs, snack options; black
tips the prey over, I slip under, basking

in soft spaces of rows and rows of teeth, great,
white razors, all replaceable, like the nurse

bringing new sheets, stained, washed, still grey;
reefs color the water, so why falter; I am a saw,
sharp, serrated, deliberate; I spill, I pour;
beagle, sniffing the floor; you are a hammer,
head harder than bones you don’t own; bull-et, unsta-ble,
fluid, fast, fins slice tides, draw the line, in sand
where blood drops, tail thrust; I can’t fly, flee, duck; cat
claws below sea, hooks game with chains, tie
gr-acefully, vaguely; power in double meaning

Why are you sinking this way, May?
Co-urtship is so much more than this

I breathe through these slits

Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad was born and raised in New York. Her poetry has appeared in Passages North, Quail Bell Magazine, Chiron Review, Poydras Review, and is forthcoming in HEArt Journal, Natural Bridge, and Pinch Journal. She currently lives in New York and practices matrimonial law.