Feature image by Alina Szapocznikow, Lampe-sculpture, circa 1970. Tinted polyester resin, light bubble, and power supply cable. 25 x 14 1/2 x 7 3/4 inches. © ADAGP, Paris, The Estate of Alina Szapocznikow / Piotr Stanislawski. Image courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York. Photograph by Lance Brewer.

—peg leg, one armed man or
some sort of penile implant
sprouting from your crotch,
you have strange shelter here—
and i am one to watch

i love a good deformity—an eye
patch, a part time job—something wicked
in flesh gone wrong, grab the
sewn celled nub, sweet cob.
hobble hobble, swing the arm
your eyes turn screws round
round, i love a good man
rebuilt after burnt to the ground

tap me with your one good hand
fingerplay me with hot metal
sex, i do small fleshy acrobatics—
you find that metal can flex—
bend, translate heat of freak
into revolutionary freedom,
a scar, pain, suture dotted across
the line, robot fantasies come to life
your broken body, my broken mind

i love a disabled vet, a war torn
warrior, an alcoholic mishap with
toes left tapping the hot wet pavement,
bloody aftermath calls for soothing bath
nurse hands with nurse breasts, nurse
eyes with nursing mouth’s red stain—
pleasure
just the absence of pain

Maggie May Etheridge
Maggie May Ethridge is a poet and writer, Southern-born and California-raised. Her memoir Atmospheric Disturbances: Scenes from a marriage was published in 2014 by Shebooks. She has had essays, fiction, and poetry published in The Rumpus, Diagram, The Nervous Breakdown, Opium Magazine, and others. She is on the fire tail end of completing her novel, Agitate My Heart. You can find her at Flux Capacitor.