Issue #2 – Page 4 – PLEASE SEE ME

Two Poems—Rachel Larensen

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Two Poems by Rachel Larensen No Blood to Show a monster crow sits on my hip won’t let go steely talons grip to the bone draw no blood soot wings engulf me paralyzing painful hood it feeds on slumber shallow breath relishes the flavor its razor beak pecks a relentless mocking terror I’m its homely cage pain seeds my brain feeds the savage Barely Breathing now she sits with the hours around her cross-legged, bare wrists, palms open barely a breath she waits while the narcotic snake coils around broken nerves pain ...

Her Perspective—Leslie Hendrickson-Baral

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 17th, 2019 September 17th, 2019 Her Perspective by Leslie Hendrickson-Baral Her Perspective Masked bandits held me captive at knife point immobile, fettered incapable of movements slight full body prostrate surrounded by flat, yet burning, human eyes drugs at the ready Stealthy and not easily captured I was never easy prey until this vulnerable moment time and virulent enemies plotted with more ammunition than I could deflect lacking reserve to counter this frontal assault No mortal with heart could possibly attend this rite this vivisection of spirit a rending of my ...

Mammogram Sampler—Maryanne Frederick

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Mammogram Sampler by Maryanne Frederick Mammogram Sampler She apologizes as she moves my breast into a position where it ought not to go. I hold my breath as instructed, cheating just a little but hoping I don’t have to do this again. I’m silent but inwardly I’m praying gratitude. It’s a privilege to have access to this technology and the healthcare to provide it. She says I’ll get the results before I leave and that’s another thing ...

Two Poems—Jennifer Bradpiece

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Two Poems by Jennifer Bradpiece Thin Hair Each Botox doctor praises my thin hair. At least seven times, during the migraine quelling thirty shots to the skull and neck, they comment encouragingly on my “nice thin hair.” How they “find the spots so easily” with their impressive needles full of botulism. “Oh, see how easy it is with your nice thin hair?” they comment repeatedly, without a hint of irony. My head blushes. My split ends ...

Two Poems—Elisabeth Weiss

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Two Poems by Elisabeth Weiss The Teaching Hospital Interns gather around a rare specimen: my hands splayed out before them. The surgeon points to tender joints. A camera clicks a sneer of cold command. A swarm of eyes murmur at my sheghost— a body that no longer understands its own mass and weight, cannot grasp what is asked, cannot move as it should. I used to love to rowdydance, move through crowds lickety-split. Now I am a ...

Two Poems—Emily Shearer

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Two Poems by Emily Shearer Wabi-Sabi This is how we get from pain to perfect: howl, gasp, grasp, swallow, bear. Hour between dog and wolf, as a body answers sleep’s texts, when everything bends around reality’s parabola. Wabi-sabi, Japanese art, accidental crack in porcelain repaired with a shimmery glaze, a scar to remember, visible line through the body’s imperfections. Once the void begins to fill, it is no longer named “emptiness.” Call it humble; ...

Two Poems—Jill Jennings

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Two Poems by Jill Jennings Arthritis The thing nips at my heels, jumps up and claws my knees. I lie down, but the beast follows me, growls and barks, whining at my bedside hour after hour. There he’ll remain the whole night muzzle on my thigh, whimpering, keeping watch, making sure I can’t leave, as if that were an option. My ankles groan like pine floorboards beneath centuries-old feet, every step like dipping into a lake of fire, a burn fed by ...

Lynch—Maya Wahrman

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Lynch by Maya Wahrman Lynch There is no “ch” in Hebrew. Yet lynch it was: four tough guys from the south and a black man. “We thought he was a terrorist.” And that’s what the newspapers said. Four men arrested for “doing a lynch.” The “ch” marked by a makeshift diacritic. The refugee’s body marked with gun-chinks, bruises from benches used as weapons. Maya Wahrman reads "Lynch": Maya Wahrman is a bilingual case manager at the Latin American ...

Two Poems—Susan Auerbach

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Two Poems by Susan Auerbach Tending the Shrine, Two Years On for Noah Langholz, 1991-2013 Sky blue origami cranes hover in vigil over your portrait. My place is here tending the shrine, warding off the creep of time, keeping fresh the traces of your wit, the footprints of your travels. I perform my ablutions. I finger the cold soapstone heart, kiss the cracked seashell and marathon medal. I dust your album, open to a boy with a handful of grasshopper, a grinning teen atop a ...

Two Poems—Pamela Johnson Parker

Poetry Issue #2: Pain September 19th, 2019 September 19th, 2019 Two Poems by Pamela Johnson Parker A Week of Arithmetical Notes Toward an Elegy 1. Fair of Face Whenever I lie on my side of what was once our bed, I become infix notation in the tombstone sequence of BORN–DIED. 2. Full of Grace Subtraction is an additive inverse: your blue sweatshirt, inside out, on the floor of our closet, behind my rainboots. Solve for what’s missing. 3. Full of Woe An augend was my first lover; an addend was each subsequent one, associative and commutative. ...