‘The Undue Acidity in Your Veins’
— Hannah Cohen
you press into me and I press
into my skin
What attracts me to this poem is the dialogue and direct commands. A poem is the balance of weight and lightness, and Chloe Clark successfully demands our attention with words such as “press”, “make”, “cut”—all monosyllabic and to the point. We are voyeurs in this poem, alienated from the speaker’s physicality. And yet you can feel the blade of the scalpel, the fingertips—all instruments of touch and torture. I also appreciate the lack of saccharine fluff and softness, no reservations even up until the end of the poem. You don’t need to know the story or motivations of the doctor or the characters, just the blood and the wounds after.