Best Birth Control For Me Quiz: How does using the copper IUD fit with how you see yourself?

Copper encircles my wrist,
oxidizes alongside textured silver.
Rings too—a copper nail twisted around itself,
a wide band with a surface like lava.
So why not copper on the inside?
Why not a force field coiled in my uterus?

I see myself as a body within a boundary,
like fluid takes the shape of its container.
Sometimes the casing is only air. Sometimes
I freeze, crackle, strain against the confines—
I want to curl up elsewhere.

I might let someone pass through the boundary
at its weak spots. It gets lonely here—
but not so lonely I would want someone new
living and growing in here with me.
Think how we would bruise against the edges.

More of my body should be metal—
piercings, bracelets, the little copper T—
I will slice through the casing, move
like mercury and wire.

Claire Benevento is a queer writer from Kirksville, Missouri. She is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she also teaches composition. She serves as a poetry editor for Flare Journal, and her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Steam Ticket, Backchannels, Number One Magazine, Rogue Agent, and Botticelli.