Poetry

Elizabeth Kate Switaj

Model Sister

 Cicadas have taken your mourning

trees & vaccinated leaves

          with slow hum song

            You can't say   willows weep

             over your sitting grief

              (chin to breast to knees

beneath them

I can't say they're happy

-I can

        I know that it's ridiculous

      and won't sweep your skirts down here

      until the painter comes

                             to erase sound

               and bring titles to turn you

             universal  or surprising & political

           (wherever bombing's next . . .

Home from the War

You open your cabinet & find a nation

    Teapot has taken control

Glasses are shattered

                       Teacups torture

saucers and started with spoons

                      They intended to stir us

 so did the red

-lipped cup broken lies

                          among glass  knives

The Night Before I Don't Give Up

 Another white ceiling only lonely know

                    they're never pure

              white

This one hooked with light so bright

  have to move my bed to watch

bulbous streaks between the paint

                                   I can still hear

                                   moths I let in

            hit against their death 

Find them when I need to sweep   

                              wings not folded in               

The Devil

Neither your jawbone nor mine

between my bones beats

                       song over your

              deeper than puce purple notes

  scribbled on skin

                      This is formal, wild

                 Goats & tigers line dancing

  Hit the wrong partner get devoured

  Lose the beat   devouring

                           You're trampled

                               rhythmically

and you don't have to fear

thank to this jawbone

           held in my bones

         beating the music under your skin

Judgment

          I give you nothing

 but open graves

          where you buried what you need

to escape

          Those you scraped of flesh

         and rinsed of blood with your own spit

               wiped with your shirts & panties

                                       (not always your choice

                        not always all was there

smell like parchment when they rise

You love the ones that let you write

                                 Remaining flesh feeds maggots

                                 you feel when you see

You must not bury off their scent

but burn the life you left

                            down to paper skeletons

Four of Pentacles

         these coins sleep in nest you can't reach

                                  until exhausted

your muscles free your arms to stretch

over sharp & plastic cliff

Elizabeth Kate Switaj

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