Anorexia Mirabilis

A miraculously inspired
loss of appetite.
Invocation to the subcontinent of the alleyway.
The narrow staircase.
Latin name for a holy starvation.
The desire to disappear.
Transubstantiate into the width of a white sheet
covering the corpse of a small animal.
Invocation to winter blades of grass.
A solitary fig or raisin.
One glass of milk every other week.
Men deafen after they are weaned.
Do not let them look for bones under my dress –
they are already promised.
A woman’s cry not worth decoding.
Altostratus clouds ingest soundwaves
like some sip blue Slurpees.
Neruda asking And why is the sun so congenial
in the hospital garden?
Invocation to make me beautiless.
Thin as the thread that sewed God’s eyes shut.

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Joanne Dominique Dwyer is the author of RASA, chosen by David Lehman for the Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize, 2022 and Belle Laide (Sarabande Books, 2013). Dwyer’s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2024 and 2019, The American Poetry Review, The Common, Conduit, Copper Nickel, Kenyon Review, Massachusetts Review, New Ohio Review, Notre Dame Review, and Poetry. She was awarded a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award. Dwyer is also a ceramic artist and mountain hiker.