The Bonds

By Katherine Blossfield Iannitelli

I’m under a concrete slab

Like Giles Corey

(mass)(gravity) to the mediastinum

It weighs

  and weighs

    and weighs my chest flat

    The bronchioles hiss

    and

hiss

    and

hiss

    and

hiss

in depthless agonal respirations

Now, good sir, add another

and wait

and another

and wait

and another

Until the sutures give and the calvarium collapses with a crunch

Pressed

Pressed

Pressed to death