Go Ahead, Touch Me
Today as I wake
I walk carrying
a narrative carrying an end
a gorge 27 years deep
dreams made it a lid
fragile Saran Wrap we used for bologna sandwiches a skin
graft
inside
the gorge fills up with darkness & darkness’ moonlight
fills up with darkness
& darkness’ scars this body
tills soil of scarcely sorely healed
feelings
I mean skin I mean
come on touch me already
for I am savage
At 27, verging towards a doctorate at Harvard, Elly Katz survived what doctors surmised was unsurvivable: a brainstem stroke from a physician’s needle misplacement. Forthcoming books: creative nonfiction, From Scientist to Stroke Survivor: Life Redacted (Lived Places Publishing) & poetry, Instructions for Selling-Off Grief (Kelsay Books), both in 2025.