He parts her open clean, as if a prize—
not tenderly, but with a butcher’s grip.
She stills beneath the furnace of his eyes.

Each tendon splits, each seam of muscle cries.
The silence gnawed away by calloused slip.
He parts her open clean, as if a prize.

His hands don’t ask, they enter, then they slice.
They paint her skin in bruises, strip by strip.
She stills beneath the furnace of his eyes.

He calls it hunger, carves her down to size,
ignores the way her bones begin to rip.
He parts her open clean, as if a prize.

Her limbs are laid with studied enterprise,
displayed on waxed-down paper, neat, equipped.
She stills beneath the furnace of his eyes.

Her fat congeals, her muscle ossifies,
a feast arranged beneath his iron grip.
He parts her open clean, as if a prize;
she stills beneath the furnace of his eyes.

Filiz Fish is a student and writer from Los Angeles, California. An alumna of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, she has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the National Poetry Quarterly, and the National Council of Teachers of English. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Scapegoat Review, and more. In her free time, she enjoys reading and listening to music.