Sever
​by Sarah Fawn Montgomery

Slice me wide, splay
               my meat and mellow
fat yellowed to shine
               across some stranger’s
smile, gentle butcher,
               here are my best bones
for your stock, to wet
               the driest day-old bread,
and I promise not
               to howl my hurt
across the dining table
               like some foolish lamb
who tastes best before the body
               is lean and fear seasoned,
instead a mussel without
               the protection of home
a severed body boneless and free,
               ​soundless to swallow down.
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Sarah Fawn Montgomery is the author of Halfway from Home (Split/Lip Press, 2022), Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir (The Ohio State University Press, 2018) and three poetry chapbooks. Nerve, a craft book on unlearning the ableist workshop and developing a disabled writing practice, is forthcoming with Sundress Publications, and Abbreviate, a short collection of flash nonfiction, is forthcoming with Harbor Editions. She is an Associate Professor at Bridgewater State University.
A 2025 Pushcart Prize nominee, Montgomery's poem can be found in Issue 30 of Glassworks.