Padraig Regan

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Poem for my Chest

In fact, I almost never think
about whatever lack 

I carry there, or don’t;
its flat actuality;

its weightlessness
& veinlessness;

the minimal risk
that a lump of cells

might root in its substrate
& divide like a bad regime;

its ignorance of pain
& pain’s tidal cadence;

the inconvenient bulk
of its scaffold, & the soft

meat breathing under it;
its nipples — small, pink

& redundant
in their coarse lashes —

from which nothing
will leak, no matter 

how many mouths
come crawling.

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PADRAIG REGAN is the author of two poetry pamphlets: Delicious (Lifeboat, 2016) and Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real (Emma Press, 2017). In 2015, they were a recipient of an Eric Gregory Award. Their first book Some Integrity will be published by Carcanet in early 2022.