Morgan Matchuny

During Sex I Do the Math

Sometimes I leave my body
right in the middle of wanting—

your hands steady
like a railing,

mine learning the language of loss,
small numbers with sharp teeth.

Four percent
is a crack you can hide a life in.

The closet mirror bends me
into a long, nervous truth,
a body practicing disaster.

Your mouth finds my neck.
I think about borders.

How skin becomes a line
you’re always about to cross.

How the future keeps asking
for collateral.

Desire knocking
on a door that doesn’t open.

Faith, they say,
is entry with no receipt.

I keep the change.

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Morgan Matchuny is a poet based in Lexington, Kentucky. She has work published or forthcoming in HAD, Anti-Heroin Chic, Elsewhere Magazine and other places.