Laura Navratil

WHAT IS APPETITE, THEN

but small pinpricks in the abdomen, the lower spine?  like skin, swollen with infection.  it takes too long to explain.  you make a job of distraction—thick with books and appointments and phone calls.  as a lemon is thick with skin.  the games of chance have been boarded up by the carnival men, rolled away.  i have received nothing more substantial than spun sugar.  thoughts of satiation.  my eyes range like an animal’s, always catching movement in the corners.  but the movement is not yours, knocking, nudged by desire.

Laura Navratil is from Naperville, Illinois. She is currently an M.F.A. candidate at the University of Alabama, where she is an assistant poetry editor of Black Warrior Review.