Pseudopodia, by Emily Newman

 
Pseudopodia; Jonathan Wolken for Pilobolus Dance Theater, 1973
 
Coiling body as rolling
flames, holding foot
in space hangs.
He is soundless
in the hall behind the kitchen.
She protects her softening
core, her crumbling
color still red.
In the doorway, he
leans. Over
her darkening
hips he breaks
his decline. An
all-percussion score
is playing across
the gored linoleum,
digging her heels
and clenching each toe
purple, wedged,
while gravity proves
following too closely
against the suspension
she is failing to hold.
Beyond silent,
the evening shifts
along the asphalt,
distracting dirt as he
lets the rest of her fall
again, still again,
still red.

Emily Newman

Emily Newman is a poet from Seattle. She served as managing editor for the Beloit Fiction Journal for the Spring 2017 issue, and her poetry has been published most recently by Seattle 4Culture and The Eunoia Review. She is uncommonly good at the 1981 edition of Trivial Pursuit considering that she was not alive in 1981.