Abigail Chabitnoy

REMEMBER LILITH 

What can I say? She had too many ribs.
She was bound to develop extra lungs, maybe
an extra heart or two.

She filled holes each time she came 
into the room.

It was only a matter of time before they realized 
she just took a little longer
to drown. Her extra heart 
won’t work for you.

Each time we learn the hard way 
slices in one’s throat don’t make a body 
breathe under pressure.

Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Poetry and shortlisted in the international category of the 2020 Griffin Prize for Poetry. She was a 2016 Peripheral Poets fellow and her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, LitHub, and Red Ink, among others. She is a mentor for the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA in Creative Writing and is a Koniag descendant and member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak.