Livia Meneghin

Two Poems

We Don’t Have Brains, But We Do Sleep

When a burning tries to deprive me

of life, I allow a surgeon’s knife

to my neck—I find rest

in the synthetic, swallowing

pill after pill—radioactivity simmers

under my skin until I ring

like a bell underwater.

We have rudimentary hearts & bedtimes—

with minds tested by the day

what can we do but lie,

form vortices with every pulse

like jellyfish seconds from discovering

suspension.

Our neurons refuse to quiesce—I know

I can’t grasp the irreversible,

but why not 

be alive.

the only way you can live

take off your clothes

she is only

scanning your neck

to find

         the hiding

your arms are bound

by lead

she slips dyed iodine

in your veins

because otherwise

how will she know

the machine is awake

the bed jolts and you close


your eyes, enter, but the whirring


disturbs and the injection leaves you


warmed like the only time you got drunk


and you put your head on someone’s shoulder

and you told that girl too much but you needed to

get it out—

Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of Honey in My Hair and the winner of Breakwater Review's 2022 Peseroff Prize. She is the Sundress Publications Reads Editor, and teaches writing and literature at Emerson College, where she earned her MFA. She is a cancer survivor.