Ann DeVilbiss
Shelley’s Monster Nears the End of Treatment
Striated crumble where they split
bedrock, hauled from dead earth
my body, made it change, from stone slab
I am risen, new form pieced and sewn.
I stand at the gusted end, raw as selvage
a glow in the night that will not yield
amber my bones inside their housing
storm electric lifting my nested hair
pulse like a current beating swollen
in a body broken again and again
stitched back from scraps, as if a quilt
my mismatched eyes bright with
two kinds of sight, near and far
villagers with their torches
the binding rope as it loosens
how cruel this passage
inside my mangled chest how
piecemeal beats my graying heart.
Ann DeVilbiss (she/her) has work published or forthcoming in Appalachian Review, Columbia Journal, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. Her book of spell poems, The Red Chorus, is forthcoming from White Stag Publishing in the fall of 2025. She has received support from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and she lives and works in Louisville.