Elizabeth Scanlon

• WHOLE

• The tissues taken, do you resent them,
• and which, the takers or the things,
• the wisdom teeth, the placenta, the hanks of hair—
• a small part does, some scab of soul
• wishes to be whole as a wolf in the woods. 
• Those drabs were mine.
•                  I understand 
• the hoarder, the bag lady, the Lear 
• limping along in a big-box store, 
• even as I look away—
• there’s shame in wanting. 
• It’s such a fucking mess. How do we 
• unlearn the drive for more?
• We’ve never not loved excess.

ELIZABETH SCANLON is the Editor of The American Poetry Review. She is the author of Lonesome Gnosis, The Brain Is Not the United States/The Brain Is the Ocean, and Odd Regard. She is a Pushcart Prize winner and her poems have appeared in many magazines including Boston Review, Ploughshares, Colorado Review, and Crazyhorse. She lives in Philadelphia.