I hold out to you
     The calloused palm of my life
          The mal-knit fracture of my story
               The ingrown nail of regret
                   Bleating feet and fissured heels

I hold out to you
     My faded flower-face
         My shorn forlorn crown
            Baggaged jowls
                 The narrow street of my lips

I hold out to you 
This monster

And yet, 
     Though I may sway in a gale 
          I remain standing,
               A chipped ballast
                    On marbled legs 

Teal veins rivering 
     Zig zagging 
          Bubbling behind my knees
               Bubbling towards my centre
                    Longing bleeds from my many-mouthed heart

Telling you
I am hungry, 
Still.

Anne Marie Corrigan is an Irish writer living in Vancouver, BC who is privileged to live and work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Coast Salish Lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) people. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Spellbinder, Ropes Literary Journal, Fleas on The Dog, Moss Piglet, Pine Row Press, The Poet’s “Family” anthology, Leon Literary Review, Alive Magazine, The Exchanger, The Thunderbird Magazine, In Dublin Magazine, and Orato. Alongside her love of poetry, Anne Marie has also completed her first book of fiction, The Cause, and is working to get it published.