16 Mar ATTACHMENT by Paula Wachowiak
You have grown into me like fibers in my bone.
I have ingested you
and you are new tissue
with life and blood
coursing through my veins.
You are oxygen I breathed
and used
that formed vital parts
You have absorbed
through my skin and become flesh.
The air in my lungs is made of your breath.
The weight of your presence is with me,
safe and constant,
as my own being.
You are another limb of me
that has pulled away
with life of its own.
There is phantom feeling
because you belong
to my body.
I have ingested you
and you are new tissue
with life and blood
coursing through my veins.
You are oxygen I breathed
and used
that formed vital parts
You have absorbed
through my skin and become flesh.
The air in my lungs is made of your breath.
The weight of your presence is with me,
safe and constant,
as my own being.
You are another limb of me
that has pulled away
with life of its own.
There is phantom feeling
because you belong
to my body.
It is not as though
my mind is always full of you
like obsession
but that you are a free-floating form
that colors all my thoughts,
stains them with your blood
and the salt of your sweat.
My dreams contain you
as my dreams contain me
as solid as unreality.
About the Poet
Paula Wachowiak is a Buffalo-based writer, independent media-maker, and journalist. She is the author of two book-length memoirs Phonographic Memories (2024), and The Polish Cleaning Lady’s Daughter (2019), and the full-length poetry collection Painfully Close (2019) in which this poem appears.
Related Event
- Paula Wachowiak will be the featured reader at the Screening Room Poetry Series event at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 19th. The Screening Room is located at 880 Alberta Drive, Amherst. There is a $3.00 admission charge.
The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.