The hammer, the chisel

clanks along her edges,

the rough granite of her face.

She drops onto his hands, his

clothes, his eyelashes

pale with her dust.

He strikes too hard—

she cracks at his feet,

her face slivers

into a red smile,

a blue marbled eye,

a tooth, a cheek, a chin.

Her hands drop

onto the floor, the white

half moons of her nails,

her fingers gaudy

with sliver. He steps

over a foot caught

in the trap of an

expensive black heel.

He carves away

her chest, cracking the

breastbone, making a wish

as he sledges it in two.

It falls away with Eve's

ribs; the floor becomes

a minefield of her parts.

Amanda L. Auchter