Anterior of a Razed Room

What corseting—: the room cinched in
as the wrecking drill bores down,

its metal threaded vertebrae spiraling
slow through our plaster

and horsehair insulation, the seven-layer
wallpapers caked over and over each

other—a city falling
asleep under another city and another.

Our furniture slides toward a center—

the drill in the parlor a bright needle,

the floorboard rays puckered & tufted.

I want a new coveting, a lament-for.

A simple unribboning

of song. At night my horror

vacui wills itself to filled.

In the morning I find my fingers

unringing themselves—.

From the backbone of our once spared

room, you dismiss my voice as nothing

but traffic or disconstruction. When I leave you

I will leave you more than enough
light, my handmirror and a sink, to shave by.

Cori A. Winrock
"Anterior of a Razed Room" first appeared in Black Warrior Review, Issue 37.2 (Winter 2011).