Long before the grave I suffered a cosmic death.
Many girls my age found their way underground,
not in the way where we dug for treasure, or all
the way through to China. But by way of forever.

Stars clung to my cheeks that night, when, under
my mother’s forearm, my throat collapsed
like something astral. I wanted to scream, to break
my body off at the head and run. I knew she would

kill me, if it wouldn’t cost her so much. If she could
call it an accident and return to her life of raising
children. My father comes from their bedroom,
and so too adds the maw of his palm to my throat.

Spirit suffers under the weight of all we cannot speak.
Once I learned to live, I found I couldn’t shut up.
I keep making necklaces out of all that would have ended
me. I like the way the word decolletage feels in my mouth.

In the years where I was too thin, a hold like that would
have broken my collarbone. I’m here because my head
is fixed on by mercy and I have something to say. I’m fixated
on the statistics. Hemmed on what it means to breathe.

Dani Janae is a poet and journalist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work has been published by Longleaf Review, SWWIM, Palette Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, and others. Hound Triptych (Sundress Publications) is her first collection of poetry. She lives in South Carolina.

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Next Up: Abecedarian in vivo by Kathy Jiang