Carousel of Knives
Watching my reflection watch crime
television, dust upon dust haunting the screen, I saw
what I was. I was what I saw. I was a buzzsaw beholden
to the tendons of the neck. Whatever I was
I spoke little. Said nothing. I was dirty then. Hungry.
Invisible to the untrained eye. Unclaimed as ransacked baggage
on the carousel of knives. In my prime, indivisible, the last
of my kind at the starting line, tucked sweet,
motherless, into the permafrost. Nobody knew what to ask
nor expect when I rose from the pavement degloved
and desexed. The moon a poor witness.
A worthless coin. She buys nothing, remembers
nothing, peers into prisons and frees nobody, her light false
and unending as pornography. I knew it was wrong
but wrong was all I knew. I wanted to be looked
at. I wanted to be wanted. I wanted to
Maria Gray’s work appears in Best New Poets and ONLY POEMS, among others. Her debut chapbook, Science Before Fiction, is forthcoming from Game Over Books in fall 2026. She is a Sainsbury Fellow in Poetry at Hunter College in New York City, where she is pursuing her MFA in creative writing. She calls on you to recommit yourself to the liberation of the Palestinian people each day. Find her online at maria.cool.