by Aimee Bounds

There is a machine
that twists me like a screw

tightens my angled musculature
and pops askew vertebrae.

Call it intuition, call it
after-hours gooseflesh, a pricking

of pectorals against the iron maiden—
something wicked, some threat, a bruise

you keep pressing. Womb knowledge
stolen from goddesses, more volatile

than the impulse to recant when he
has your chin forked on his thumb as I

twist, twist, change sides, fifteen
reps, repeat. Premonition taut

along the rack, backslashing
backtracking. The night I left

the gym knowing without knowing
that you went back to him.

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Aimee Bounds is an MFA candidate at Cleveland State University. Her work has appeared in Thirteen Myna Birds and is forthcoming in Sanitarium Magazine. She is the current poetry editor of Whiskey Island Magazine, and enjoys stories about ghosts and cyborgs.