Heavenly Body POETRY

Katey Linskey

A friend in high school invented an alternative to crunches. Lying on our backs, we held basketballs above our heads & dropped them onto our stomachs—over and over to induce contractions. At first, we flinched in anticipation. Evolutionary protection, no match for girlhood with all its ingenuity. Back then, I thought: pain is just a path away from the undesirable. I ignored the root of the word desire: to long for, from the French word desirer. Softened from the Latin version, to demand or expect something, de sidre, from the stars— a heavenly body. A small demand, an obedient body. We started slowly, twenty repetitions. I exhaled & learned to expect a bruise.