Transubstantiation

One morning, I woke with a mouth full of stones instead of teeth. Then my skin turned pale pink, from soft and warm to cool and hard. My mouth slicked over and disappeared. Then my eyes. My body shrank. Smaller and smaller until only a polished piece of rose quartz was left atop the sheets. Later, someone – I couldn’t say who, on account of losing my eyes – found me and slipped me into her pocket. My smooth surface warmed against her thigh as we traveled around town, from the flower shop to the hospital, and every time she grew anxious, she found me again, thumb worrying my smooth side, both of us whispering it’s okay. Elsewhere, magma pushed towards the Earth’s crust. Minerals collected in the heat. A piece of rose quartz formed. Then it turned soft, stretched. Grew appendages, clawed towards light. Became girl. Covered in dirt and looking for answers.

author’s note on this possession-themed poem:
Many of my poems play with the concept of transformation, or becoming, which can just be another way of saying possessed. In Transubstantiation, you have the mirror possessions - the girl and the rose quartz, and the kind of force that keeps you clawing towards the light.

Lucie Brooks is a poet and professor. She is a board member of Sarabande Books, an award-winning, independent literary publishing house founded in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the 2022 Kentucky Poetry Society Chaffin/Kash poetry prize winner and a 2024 Grand Prix poetry prize finalist. Her work can be found in print and online, including in Swing, Salvation South, Catapult, and the LEON Review.