coups des corps
Chantae Bryant

Fat water colored bruises -
chins slicked with
spittle. Knobbed knuckles

against cage bars. Eyes feast
on a naked woman
who looks like me- no like us.

Unfettered, and skin
slack around the thighs;
reach out and touch her.

Pressed bulging bellies
against rusted iron. Tongues
lapping at the seams pulled
taught with virgin thread.
couper. To cut,
a coup, yes.

couper les points let us
bathe in the honey.
Let it crystallize in our veins.

Feast on the body
and be sure to devour
the womb first.

This is consecration.
The wine, the bread,
the ovaries torn through white skin.
Is it your mother who weeps?

Gnashed jowls at the gate,
the twist of a key.
I have long heard the
voice of God, I saw him once too.

He is the empty
form that emerges
from my mouth to the phallus.

He is the woman,
who looks like you and me,
call her by name.

He is the womb warped
and uglied.
Threads long cast aside.
Come inside
and consume more
beyond the eyes.

Let us sully our bones and
play pretend upon this fetid land.

Winter in the Womb

Chantae Bryant

Incandescent pearls
lacerated across my vision,
I cannot see

the snow covered world holding
time between its plaque-less teeth.
The days placated

between grooved gums. Frozen
water of the womb keeping
us still and unmoving.

There is no need
to leave this place
and begin.

Lost Waters
Chantae Bryant

I was the early
breach body on a winter's day
in February when the earth still grew cold.
Amethyst slicked roads,
ice around the edges turning skin blue black

Pulp rubies bursting with blood.
Not yet healed cesarean wounds.
My mother forgot my name under
Bupivacaine haze.

My tongue, language warped
and ancestral bones cracking.
In the dark waters of a mother's body
that held the answer to a question
not yet formed.

Chantae Bryant is a writer from Colorado who currently resides in southern Japan. Some of her favorite things include campy 2000s horror movies, substack blogs, and chocolate chip cookies.