Amanda Deutch
nests hair refuge
massive palpitations
this skeleton
this open chest
wide landscape
above my breasts
vast in stones
it quarries
precious metals—
gems
press to choose my fucks
ingenious, civil, entire
to faint in the museum of
one’s breath is the greatest risk—
to go out
dressed as the animal
in your skin, close to the
place, state of life
Photo: Raymond Adams
Amanda Deutch is the author of five chapbooks including, most recently, Pull Yourself Together (Dancing Girl Press, 2016), the collaborative (with Barbara Henry and Rosaire Appel) Fit to Print (Harsimus Press, 2015), and Half Moon Hotel (forthcoming from Least Weasel Press in 2016). Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Revolver, Bone Bouquet, 6×6, Denver Quarterly, Ping Pong, Watchword Press, and Barrow Street, as well as in the anthology Manifesting the Female Epic, edited by Sarah Anne Cox and Elizabeth Treadwell and forthcoming from Lark Books. A graduate of Bard College, Amanda has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Brooklyn Arts Council, Footpaths (Azores) and The Betsy (Miami). Born and raised in Manhattan, she now lives in Brooklyn and curates Parachute Literary Arts.
This poem appeared in Box of Sky: Skeleton Poems B.O.S.S. (dusi/e–chap kollectiv project, 2009)