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Willy
by Elizabeth Switaj

July 1, 2015 Contributed By: Elizabeth Switaj

this dangerous
habitual
criminal, I
fingered soles
& pounded leather,
shaping shoes by smell

as much as by the shapes my hands
rested in when their force
reached the limit set
by material resistance

my resistance
was never material
in June, if soap
-y smell of new
flowers doesn’t lie, I said
my absent eyes
that never grew

make me no worse than you
to the young girl who asked
how much I ate without giving back

the soldiers’ feet would bleed
sooner
without me

and in a couple weeks, I was locked
with a more chemical
soap smell
and something like shit and rust

nurses, I think, told me when to sleep, and I
don’t trust the lengths of their days

so I thought it was forever
and not just eight more months
before they put me on the bus

to suffocate & burn  at the age of thirty-five

 

 

Return to table of contents for Issue 9 Summer 2015.

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Filed Under: Poetry Posted On: July 1, 2015

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