Gabrielle Langley

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Lidocaine Needle

I am a jewel box
being carved
down to bone

                   the lesion     malignant    

in the exact place
where a tear
refuses to fall

                        elongated     5.5 mm

             thin     pearl-like

                                 papule     transected

I dream
I am a casket 
lined in tattered silk

                          radiating tendrils

stitched
into midnight

                            roots

                                              pallisades

something soft
being woven
into scar

I am
a blue silk thread
closing a wound

Gabrielle Langley is the author of Fairy Tale (Sable Books, 2023) and Azaleas on Fire
(Sable Books, 2019). She has won the Lorene Pouncey Poetry Award and the Vivian
Nellis Memorial Award for Creative Writing. Ms. Langley was also a spearhead and co-
editor for the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the global epidemic of violence against
women (Sable Books, 2016). Additional information available at
www.gabriellelangley.com.