Abigail Chabitnoy

EVERY WOMAN WHO WAS TURNED TO EARTH IS REACHING THROUGH MY MOUTH

It began three small grains
rock salt
plugging holes behind my
mouth

I pulled out but
further down the holes ran
rocks the size of
eyes ground smooth against their own
gnashing

I pulled them out by the basket
full until the soft flesh in my mouth
wove a net to catch them

what body is not bound
web or blooded line
of inquiry?

closed my mouth 
is culpable 
still

no one taught me how to speak 
with so many words weighing
my tongue

no one taught me to speak
from salt
bodies looking back

Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Poetry and shortlisted in the international category of the 2020 Griffin Prize for Poetry. She was a 2016 Peripheral Poets fellow and her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, LitHub, and Red Ink, among others. She is a mentor for the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA in Creative Writing and is a Koniag descendant and member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak.