Bodied

This body of water with red sludge
that needs dye to sink the clay runoff

to turn the color glacial blue

This body never consecrated, seemingly
abandoned, immaterial, taken from
history to become celestial

This body of stars distinctly patterned
rivets in a hard metal sky

This body of text

This full-bodied wine             undrunk

This body count repeated, defined
as a mass murder

This body of a loved one        no
longer anywhere

This body of cold curled fur
to take up and hold anyway

This body politic
that breaks

Terri McCord is a South Carolina Arts Commission fellowship recipient, has earned awards from Hub City, Emrys Foundation, the Poetry Society of South Carolina, literary journals, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her poems have been nominated for a “Best of the Net” and several Pushcarts.

McCord is a painter and photographer as well as a poet, and studied both at Furman University. She received her MFA in creative writing from Queens University in Charlotte. She is married and lives with her cats that were fosters in Greenville, South Carolina. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Broad River Review, Rogue Agent, Pinhole Poetry Review, Twelve Mile Review, Fall Lines, Orchards Poetry Review, Kakalak, South Dakota Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Pinyon Review 30th Anniversary Edition.