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CLAWS
With age, nails thicken,
the flesh beneath them toughening.
It grows difficult to distinguish
the grains of earth beneath your feet.
Scar tissue numbs the digits, the forelimbs,
long strips of healed muscle and fat.
You touch everything, hoping to feel.
You consume, hoping to taste.
The moon sinks after a long night of hunting.
There is heat on your lips.
The blood drying beneath the sharpness—
is it yours? Is it theirs?
Jo Angela Edwins has published poems in various venues including Whitefish Review, West Trestle Review, Zone 3, Number One, and Calyx. Her chapbook Play was published in 2016. She has received awards from Winning Writers, Poetry Super Highway, and the SC Academy of Authors and is a Pushcart Prize, Forward Prize, and Bettering American Poetry nominee. She teaches at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC, where she serves as the poet laureate of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina.
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