"The Deep Part" by Steven Ray Smith

The Deep Part

Now and then it blurts pure pith.
You could pet it
if it were not lodged beneath the Coracoid process,
its favorite place to hide.

You’d like to divorce it.
You feel it lingering beneath the bones, itchy
like a kernel in the esophagus.

You would divorce it
but it knows no one else.
Unlike the very best or the very worst friend,
it will itch you to the end.

Steven Ray Smith

Steven Ray Smith is the author of a two minute forty second night (FutureCycle Press, 2022). The book was shortlisted for the Steel Toe Book Award in 2020. His poetry has been published in Verse Daily, The Yale Review, Southwest Review, The Kenyon Review, Slice, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, The Hollins Critic and others. He is an assistant editor for THINK: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction, and Essays. More information about his work can be found at StevenRaySmith.com.

Headshot: Casey Chapman Ross

Photo Credit: Staff