“KLEPTOTHERMY AND OTHER THEFTS OF FLESH” by Cassandra Myers
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets' daily poetry dispatch. Read "KLEPTOTHERMY AND OTHER THEFTS OF FLESH" by Cassandra Myers, winner of the 2025 Arts & Letters Club of Toronto Foundation Poetry Award.
KLEPTOTHERMY AND OTHER THEFTS OF FLESH
By Cassandra Myers
when the blue lipped sea krait - venom ten-fold
a diamondback - slinks into the seabird nest -
it is born to loot
animals must take more energy than exerted -
an economy of actions - through feeding - or sunning
or for this snake - hugging - a bendy thermometer rising
so much has been said of hunger - but what of heat?
°C
i am no beginner at theft - magpie disorder -
brittle chokers - dead monarchs - velvet gowns -
fish gills I’ll never wear
my economy of want - I take what I am owed -
nothing lost or gained when ants make condos of bone
°C
my wife - a hearth with freckles - asks for a bigger bed
i am the cayman to her termite nest - her ice tray ankles
for my cold pack chest - every degrees she gives me
she doesn’t get back - offering - the overcoat of sacrifice
she feels under appreciated - tucks warmth behind her ear
in the morning I make her tea - she faces the wall to sleep
°C
studies show the less social contact you have -
the lower the heat gun beeps - when she leaves me
i ask concrete - who will put their arm
in the door between me and winter?
i bed my metabolic rate - mercury sick
crepuscular grief - beg the January lake
for a numb so final it will snowglobe me
at the center of empty’s jawbreaker
we know about freeze response -
but what about melt?
°C
melt is me tearing loss from its plastic bag
rushing it’s boil - an economy of actions -
leather cool boys - take my pulse
i’m blistering for loud breath
freezer burn - to be be both ice and melt and ice once more
to loose all that plumps you with movement - an icicle’s husk
maybe the C in C-PTSD is for celsius
i’m a walking silver tube
only red or blue
hyper or hypo aroused
°C
thaw is melt when a child of sun comes home
an entire whole year without touch - i didn’t shrivel
went to coffee shops alone - took only candles
into my bed - lantern rite - incense river - warm
was my own eye being fulled with morning
it’s yellow demand
°C
maybe that bird needed a squeeze
as much as the snake needed the lite
less theft, more barter - touch symbiotic -
when they take my temperature
at the grocery store - I pass the test
I pay for everything in my cart
°C
my divorce gift to her - a bespoke kitchen knife
when she takes it by the spine - she still takes me
by the hand - on one end tenderness and the other -
slaughter. when she cooks with her new wife
i am still feeding her which is to say,
by a blade’s blue steel - i can still
keep her warm
Copyright © Cassandra Myers
Winner of the 2025 Arts & Letters Club of Toronto Foundation Poetry Award.
Cassandra Myers (My’z) (they/she/he) is an award winning poet, performer, dancer, illustrator, and counselor from Tkaronto, Ontario. As a queer, non-binary, South-Asian-Italian, crip, mad, survivor of sexual violence, Cassandra’s work has won national literary and spoken word titles including the National Magazine GOLD Award in Poetry and Champion of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Find them @cass.myers.poetry at cassmyers.com, sailing, or riding a horse.
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