five poems
by Allyn Bernkopf
Eat, Eat, Eat
My horoscope tell me to slice through my walls
so I grab a boning knife and carve, start
at the orifice of my fridge. Shove my hand inside
aluminum throat, force regurgitation of apples,
pears, kumquats, a half-eaten kiwi packed
neatly in pyrex, separate skin from flesh.
I imagine he sits lazily, traces circles in the flesh
of my neckbone, presses lips to my wall
of cheek, catches my jaw between fingers. Packed
tight in his fist is my hair and he starts
to pull, leans me back. He’s a bite of apple,
textured in location, and now I’m inside
this clockworn conduit full of fruit. Inside
the drawers overfilled with avocados–flesh
taught–which means they’ll be bad tomorrow. Apples
are next door, so I slide between the plexi-walls,
begin gnawing on a Fuji or Pink Lady. Start
digesting the bacteria trying to rot this packed
space. What I’m trying to say is, I packed
enough food for me and a lover. I am inside,
alone, all day. I want to feel cool fingers start
at the small of my back while I parse flesh
from fresh fruit at the sink, music walls
us together, I need you tonight, and the apples
sweat. I want moments like this apple
exchange. Feed each other kipfels packed
with yellowrind. Imagine sun-streaked walls
every morning. Your pupils bright inside
the mute of day. My own lips turn up, fleshing
out this expansion. This sits in my chest. Starts
collecting bones throughout my body. A startling
surprise with how algae-ic it is. Ambrosia apples
are such a muted fruit, but Granny Smiths are irresistible flesh
when folded and baked in cinnamon and butter. Packed
chunks of bitter saccharine. I imagine you and me. Inside
a wise bungalow, bricks chipped and charming. Our walls.
We sit, flesh out how we start
a family with walls of crisp apple
hearts. Unpack the sweetsour inside.
Lifescrape
I slice a pound of strawberries.
My fridge was so cold, it tints some
Of them purple, white, luminescent
Pink, and I think to myself, What if
They are bad? even though I just
Bought them. I shower them in sugar,
Pack them tight in my backpack
Before heading downtown. I settle
At Aspen, the small-town coffee
Shop, and pull them out. Carefully,
I devour them while I research Sappho.
Read about the Tenth Muse who was
Forced to fall in love with a man blessed
By Aphrodite. Did Sappho’s girlfriends
Advised her that Phaon was bad news?
That anyone anointed by a God is
Dangerous? I am not Sappho, but
I wonder if my lover is Phaon-adjacent.
How I can’t help but trace his jawline
When his face is close. I’m not
Supposed to fall for him, so I read
How Sappho died. My mouth full.
Mouthfeel
Listen : He is beautiful : Eyes
of black granite: lips so full
against mine I want to take a bite :
pull him into me : taste cigarettes
wet on his breath : I am beside myself
when he asks me for casual sex :
I thought I knew : myself well : enough
but longing : loneliness is wide :
a stainless steel bowl : a crisp cool sad :
So meeting this man’s expectation
is easy purring against his body :
hands explore my face : hips :
bend of waist : I want him to crease
me : origami : fold me into silk :
I want to be rich : his thick scent : his sweat
: please : devour :
Wrong Poem
Sitting outside, the neighborhood is mowing the lawns,
which means it’s lawn-mowing day. It feels wrong
because it’s Thursday, not Saturday, and doesn’t every
one know that Saturday is the correct day? Other
than this, all I can think about is the opossum that died
in my yard last Sunday, and now the mower blades
will cross the body, and I think how I should have
moved it when only rigor mortis had set in. Before
I witnessed its deflation from the flies and whatever
else eats the insides of a corpse. How I’m sorry
that I didn’t give it a proper burial because I wanted
to observe the decomposition process, write it into
a poem. But this was not the poem I had in mind
and yet this is the poem it’s getting. All I can say
is I’m so sorry. The blades were faster than my brain
or hands or pen, and now, even in death, there is unrest.
“Six Common Myths About Bone Collectors” in Spenserian Stanzas
after Jake’s Bones
1. “Why Don’t You Leave Animals To Rest In Peace?”
I started collecting questions is all.
Animals rest apart, dragged, ripped, left to
rot, so I gnawed at their curves. Call, recall
memory, pick clean for safe keeping, to
shelf. I know I’m inefficient. Dermestids would do
a better job, but how do I preserve my own
body if I can’t separate bone from residue?
My first was a horse skull from Mt. Ogden,
shot in the head. I carried it, gave it a home.
2. “Isn’t Bone Collecting A Bit Yucky?”
I remember, when I was a child, Pa
told us how they’d take care of kittens when
the barn cat popped a fresh litter. Each saw
nothing but a wide light, then black. A tomb
created from burlap sack and string. Men
would gather in the muddy bank to usher
how far they could throw each soul to Duchesne.
That river was named after a mother—
her Sacred Heart—a place where no one should suffer.
3. “Isn’t It A Bit Morbid?”
At eight, I saw my first car accident.
That’s a lie—I just saw the victim laying
in the road. A black lab, tongue out, in shock,
perhaps, but it looked like it was smiling.
Its tail beat against the asphalt, trying,
speaking to people stopping that it was
ok. It wasn’t ok. Blood pooled, sucking
at the dog’s face and I couldn’t unpause
the slip of time—this image of existence flawed.
4. “Don’t Bone Collectors Want Animals To Die?”
I often think about mortality.
At four, pneumonia cratered my body.
Caught like a killer hug in daycare. See
the rashes reach down tiny arms, fever
gripped, and that rattle of lung. At four! Breathe
to the cure, but allergic. Hundreds of
years ago, I’d have died. This clever,
kid-killer disease. Even now, it loves
eating small bodies. It’s so aggressive.
5. “Bone Collectors Aren’t Animal Lovers.”
Strep was the other illness that gripped me.
Called scarlet fever hundreds of years back.
Another red rash epidemic sweet
on children. Turned life into names tacked
to walls before statistics, so we guessed
death rates. Do you know what thirty percent
looks like? Let me put it this way. A class
of twenty children. A gunman targets
six. Bullet-holes. Bullseyes. One is yours. Circumvent.
6. “Why Can’t You Just Be Interested In Live Animals?”
Dark oxygen is something bright and new.
Lives in the black of our sickly ocean.
Scientists want to study it. Harbor it.
Corporate America seeks motion
to capitalize and capsize this cove
of life for profit. Listen—let me ask.
Which bones do you keep for your collection?
Horse? Bird? Toad? Take the Goldfinch. Take a crack
at the skull of real. At the life around. Unmasked.
Photo of Allyn Bernkopf
BIO: Allyn Bernkopf is a Ph.D. Candidate in English, Poetry at Oklahoma State University, where she is also an associate editor for the Cimarron Review. A Best of Net nominee, her work has appeared in Stonecoast Review, The Bayou Magazine, The Greensboro Review, and others. She holds an MA in English, Poetry, and is from the mountain-west valley of Ogden, Utah.