Isabel Yacura | innovating to avoid genesis

Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh– halfway between frame and verse.
I crack open a rib and make fire. I pull apart another for a roof, shingle tiny flecks of bone into something holy, this space, the hearth (the heart, the hart, a running rabbit running scared, sparks into the night)

I still flinch when he raises his voice.
the blood boiling, a sticking sense of something greater than anger, the start of slow steady thump of fist against wood. (no reason, no reason.)
my body becomes a creeping prey animal, the fact that I lack the power myself.
Fear is an easy, cheap thing. It’s one I have no currency to buy.

i hold/i cup/i cradle. I wax poetic about hangover soup in the back of an uber.
Body of my body. Come in, I say, third one down in hand. I’m making dinner, something with marrow in it, something to stick to your bones.
Adam could not do this.

My hips ache, endlessly.
Ankles to knees to my aching/aching/aching joints, the swiveling sockets.
My bloody knuckles. My bent spine.
Picking shards of glass out of the sink, it comes to mind how long it’s been since I cut my legs shaving. I don’t know anyone who’s scared of blood.

My ribs create a castle, a cage, a ladder to scale up and down on– a c#, the heavy punch of roofing nails, the inevitable thought of the glass.
My ribs like dragon’s teeth, sown endlessly.
I reap, i reap, i reap.

Isabel Yacura is a writer and editor in Brooklyn, New York. She has been featured in Kelp Journal, Apricity Magazine, National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, and other publications. She’s currently represented by Haley Casey at CMA Literary, and can be found @isabelyacura on Twitter.