Membrane With Veins, by Michał Choiński

detail, The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch (Netherlands) 1480-1505

Membrane With Veins 

My body retained the palmaris longus.
Hers didn’t.  
“I’m more evolved,” she laughed,
putting our hands next to each other,
tapping on the tendon
with the tips of her fingers –
“You know they will take it out,
if you ever need spare parts?”.
Other than that, we were analogous –
both in height and in weight.
Our marathon BPs 
were only two minutes apart.
After one year,
we decided to move in together,
and we hung the image 
of that couple from Bosch’s painting
over our bed.
But then, we couldn’t agree
if the sphere
is made of glass with cracks,
or if it is a membrane with veins.
From that point on,
I asked her to sleep on the side
closer to the door,
which, to my disappointment,
brought us both more comfort.

Michał Choiński

Michał Choiński (he/his/him) teaches American literature at the Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland). He has written two academic books - his latest monograph, Southern Hyperboles came out with LSU Press in 2020. Choiński's debut pamphlet Gifts Without Wrapping was published by Hedgehog Press in 2019. His poems and translations of poetry were published in journals in Poland, in the UK and in Canada. In 2022, he'll be at Yale University, as a Fulbright Fellow, writing his next book.