dam sheli

in hebrew we don’t just say my love
we say my life
we say my soul
why stop there
why not my breath
my blood my veins my arteries
why don’t we embrace after a long day my bowel
exclaim in glee at a surprise gift my liver
lay in bed late at night and whisper my spleen hands in her hair
tugging my gallbladder and when we fall out of love there would be warnings
first it would be my kidney when she comes home and pecks him on the cheek
after a day of passionless silence yes my appendix he says when she asks him
to pick up his socks the fourth time that day my tonsils she whines
my little toe he grunts back

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Rachael Sevitt is a Scottish-Israeli writer, poet, and editor. She is the recipient of the 2023 Andrea Moriah prize in Poetry, and an MA student in Creative Writing at Bar Ilan University. Rachael lives near Tel Aviv, Israel. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Passengers Journal, Squawk Back, Write-Haus Magazine, and elsewhere. Find more of her work at rachaelsevitt.com and @rachael.sevitt on Instagram.