Sara Peters

R T

The Last Time I Slept in This Bed

I was involved in the serious business
of ripping apart my own body.

I’ d run my fingers over it,
seeking but never finding

the right point of entry,
so having to tear one myself,

though midway through
I’ d always tire,

and let night enter
like a silver needle,

sewing my eyelids shut.
This was not an original practice,

but thinking, for a time, that it was
felt like being able to choose

when spring would arrive:
engineering an April