by Chelsea Werner-Jatzke
He holds my birthday like a national holiday.
He tells me on the phone, calling
from a number I don’t have
blocked, I hold your birthday like a national holiday.
As if I were a dead man.
As if I were a dead man and my birthday was the day of my birth
as a man. As if he were
cradling so many dead men in honor of my birth as a man
dead meat.