Patty Nash

DISAMBIGUATION 1

I chipped my tooth. It was somehow apropos
the utensil, the microwaved potato,
the butter,
& the salt, more salt, probably
than is good for me, though together, we elate in culminations
of long, insipid days. I eat a lot of salt. On a jog through the annals of Iowa
I’m suctioning air through a wet straw,
eat salt to fulminate the sweat
my body expels ad nauseam…     the milky sudation     a damp lamina
all over my body     & also, I speculate the     source of puffy undereyes
over which I agonize      in secret, after dinner—in the mirror—
the damage done to my incisor a contiguous thing
in retrospect:

PATTY NASH is a poet and translator whose work appears in Denver Quarterly, inter|rupture, the Offing, and Prelude. She received MFAs in creative writing and translation from the University of Iowa and lives in Berlin.