‘Were We Ever’, ‘I’ve Shrugged On An Exoskeleton’ & ‘I Dreamed a Knife’

Suwan Choi is an artist with a deep passion for the natural world, focusing especially on insects and birds. Her work captures the intricate beauty and diversity of these creatures, aiming to inspire a greater appreciation for wildlife and nature's delicate balance.

Were We Ever 

— in collaboration with Michael Mayes 

Were we ever close as houses? Did we reach  like jigsawed eaves across the sky,  

the possibility of fitting measured by one  grass-licked, grave-sized patch of earth?  

I know I did, lunged and cursed. 

Were we ever thick as thieves? Lured by  

every gilded afternoon from memory caves  of my own making, I was appeased by the least  illumination imitating the treasure of you,  precious as platinum or any smooth pebble. 

Weren’t we more like empty bottles? We busted  our pasts, fictions transparent as fairytales,  like quenched-clean glass on the tracks. Whose mouth  was it that summoned the djinn, drunk and wishing  with glottal stops dissolved in swallows? 

Even more like falling leaves, we were in love  with vertigo. Rapture in reverse thirsting for dirt.  Which of us will hit the ground first, breathless,  reverberating? Who will ambush the other from  the roof? Not falling but hurtling. 

Were we ever tight like drumming, under sheets  that fit us like calfskin gloves, our thrumming fingers accompanied by rain? When you sing, I still hear  that train’s tender wailing, a chorus I chase after,  not waving goodbye but hailing. 

Were we ever tough as nails, bloody crescents  clutched in our palms deeper with every lover’s  leaving? Will I be the only beloved left to lock your satin-pillowed lid? Or will you be alone,  rubbing paper and crayon against my stone instead?

I’ve shrugged on an exoskeleton 

but it won’t settle, even with little to no breeze or anyone  listening / it twirls and clacks and whistles, so much more  ferocious than bones crouched in muscle disguised as boards  soaked in blood, soft enough to bend, to be reassembled,  scaffolds that won’t attract attention by clattering when they finally give out / I’m not even sure the body lives, really, the way I don’t trust the flesh of a tomato, conundrum in its violet twilight, essential just the same as any soft wadding that plumps  a body at rest: sawdust or eiderdown or memory or old rags / this haint I’m dressed in makes me a marionette with teeth like a fork / it demands: to be given the spotlight, without per mission or intervention, to be the whole story, what’s fallen or doubled down on / it sticks out in all directions with too much smugness, chucks pebbles at every passerby, all ego that everyone will love it if they would only turn around / but then the bones hunker down even further, refuse to be seen in the light, like the tomato’s seeds you cannot eat until you cut it open

I Dreamed a Knife

I dreamed a knife I spun like a bottle. 

I dreamed a knife struck my lips like a match. 

I dreamed a knife shed light like a trap. 

I dreamed a knife cleared a path to its door. 

I dreamed a knife waited under my skin. 

I dreamed a knife scraped rust from my tongue. 

I dreamed a knife broke me apart like a lie. 

I dreamed a knife wept at the side of my bed. 

I dreamed a knife knew all my excuses. 

I dreamed a knife locked my teeth shut. 

I dreamed a knife I tricked into a lover. 

I dreamed a knife shot off buttons like bullets. 

I dreamed a knife talked me out of my clothes. 

I dreamed a knife coaxed me to glisten.  

I dreamed a knife kept changing my mind. 

I dreamed a knife slipped the ring off my finger. 

I dreamed a knife and it turned against me. 

I dreamed a knife showed me all of its cards. 

I dreamed a knife gave me away as a gift. 

I dreamed a knife forced me from heaven. 

I dreamed a knife sewed my knees to the ground. 

I dreamed a knife so long it touched bottom. 

I dreamed a knife rowed a boat out to save me. 

I dreamed a knife let out just enough rope. 

I dreamed a knife dressed me like venison. 

I dreamed a knife I couldn’t rub clean. 

I dreamed a knife wrote a promise in salt. 

I dreamed a knife whispered drunk in my ear. 

I dreamed a knife spoke so softly I stole it.

I dreamed a knife that was too heavy to lift.

I dreamed a knife opened and closed like a gate.

I dreamed a knife kindled by lightning. 

I dreamed a knife drove the dark from my room.

I dreamed a knife pried the moon from my eye.

I dreamed a knife was a mirror and it said I was pretty.

I dreamed a knife changed all the lines on my palms.

I dreamed a knife was a shovel digging for breath.

I dreamed a knife made me swallow its sting.

I dreamed a knife that would only tell stories.

I dreamed a knife screamed its name in my face. 

I dreamed a knife crouched hidden in weeds.

I dreamed a knife grew in the garden like mint.

I dreamed a knife soft and wet like a snail.

I dreamed a knife turned my fingers to wasps.

I dreamed a knife flew and scattered the birds.

I dreamed a knife swam like a fish in the air.

I dreamed a knife gave me nothing to eat.

I dreamed a knife that I blinded with spit. 

I dreamed a knife kissed my throat to seduce me.

I dreamed a knife shouted all my confessions.

I dreamed a knife keyed open my chest. 

I dreamed a knife was warming my ribs. 

I dreamed a knife snapped my hips like a wishbone.

I dreamed a knife dragged my threats to the fire.

I dreamed a knife gave in to my pleading.

I dreamed a knife as confusing as laughter. 

I dreamed a knife granted what I had wished for.

I dreamed a knife unknotted my fist.

I dreamed a knife fell out of my mouth.

I dreamed a knife walked away with my voice.

I dreamed a knife sang a song I’d forgotten.

I dreamed a knife was pretending to sleep.

I dreamed a knife that twitched as it dreamed. 

I dreamed a knife masqueraded as praise. 

I dreamed a knife cut prayer into bleating.

I dreamed a knife quivered under the sheet.

I dreamed a knife kept waking me up.

I dreamed a knife whetted itself on my thigh.

I dreamed a knife carved lust from my lap.

I dreamed a knife twisted itself in my hair.

I dreamed a knife was smudged with my breath.

I dreamed a knife tethered my wrists. 

I dreamed a knife slid in like a sliver. 

I dreamed a knife as silent as thread.

Michele M Miller holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona. Honors for her poetry include an Arizona Commission on the Arts fellowship, and designation as runner-up for the National Poetry Series and the Kore Press First Book Prize. Her chapbook "The Pocket Museum of Natural History" is forthcoming as a finalist in the New Women’s Voices Series from Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and been shortlisted for several national competitions. Michele writes and photographs in her heartland, the Sonoran Desert of Tucson, Arizona.