Moonflower

by Caitlin Hyslop-Margison


I look at myself through a kaleidoscope of eyes.
None of them are mine.

I think that my soul has been filled to the brim
with other people’s tears.

I have donated my body to a science that strips the meat off my bones
and calls it “getting to know you”.

I take up someone else’s thoughts
with a thread and a needle,
poking tiny holes in my skin
and painting my lips with the blood.

I remember a little girl sewing a shroud and settling it
over her face,
so that when she tries to feel the contours of her bones
she can only run her hands through the folds of another skin.

She traced tattoos on her mind of hands open to the sky,
waiting for praise in any language.
We are still wrapped in longing,
she and I.

The sea unfurls without ceasing at the pull of the moon,
so I fit my mouth around the stem of an evening primrose,
and my petals open beneath the sky –
inky black, and scattered with winking stars.


* * * * *

Caitlin Hyslop-Margison (she/her) is an emerging writer from Atlantic Canada. She is currently a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of New Brunswick and is pursuing a dual honours degree in sociology and history.