You are the rat rounded
with Winterspeck,
tubby and fat-hipped,
and my heart grabs fistfuls
of your love handles
My heart is the round windows
of the cast iron cover and I
am the cover;
I am the sewer plate
My heart and its aortas encircle you
and no slathering of butter or grease could slick you free
You are the rat
and I am the sewer plate
and the Polizei don’t stop us
and it takes an eight-man team
all fireman and rescue
to release you
from my love
You’d been all fat and surface-bound
and your round body bounds now
back into the sewer, unharmed
and we keep our slippery memories
but we keep them separately
and the fire brigade keeps a few funny photos—
your mouth opening and closing on cold air
your teeth like stones waving goodbye
You are gunmetal grey
all fur and skin and sinew
and my heart is the holes
in a hole-filled halo
around a rusted sun
I am flat and sting ray-sized
and made of iron,
and all of the holes in the cover are my heart
and all of the holes are empty
I am the clang under the tire
and you are the ghost of a gasp
and I am the sewer plate.
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Martina Litty is an undergraduate student studying Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington. Her work has appeared in High Shelf Press and in Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras, the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poets and Student Poets series. Litty was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Torch Literary Arts Magazine, which won first place with special merit with American Scholastic Press Association for its first edition.
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