|
5 Days
Before you plucked your eyes,
like blackberries, and placed them
into the cup of my poverty,
I didn't know how to count.
I didn't know how to fold
my fingers as newspaper,
making a fist of desire.
Before you destroyed the stars
I could only pray your blindness,
could only send you nuance,
insinuation. But tonight
it's raining, and the sticky scent
adheres, watercoloring me
with need for you.
Before there was only a hand
of days, I could think.
4 Days
I notice the time
and cut off my thumb;
its presence is unnecessary.
It reminds me of evenings
spent pressing it into flesh,
of unwillfully dropping dresses
to creased beds,
and renovating your face
with memory's clean paint.
No. I don't need thumbs.
They're for planting,
and I am ready to bloom.
3 Days
Today, I sleep you off,
rub impatient hands
down thighs. I can feel you
here; your eyes laughing
at my make-up, my obvious lips.
Where we will go in our hours
forces me to bite my eyelids
and sacrifice my existence
to the goddesses of haste.
Time is a hole
between junior high locker
rooms, and like a cat
curiosity kindles me.
2 Days
Two fingers are peace.
My world is Andrew.
Storm's lingering hands
push my hair, my limbs,
my skirt clear from my legs.
I don't know why I came
this morning; maybe
it was the Virginia in me
fiercely covering the canvas
of dawn. Maybe it was
because I felt your fingers
take my place at the thigh.
1 Day
A day is not time;
it is fragile sleep and furious
preparation. It is me, waking,
pacing, pondering. Playing
tapes you sent and tracing
the lyrics onto myself. It is trying
to tame the crescendo of my body,
the lightening in my belly.
Wait is indeed the doppelganger
of time, as nefarious as good-bye.
Today
Anticipation turns on me —
it wakes up and grows wings,
like bats, beating my body.
I can't eat and the anorexia
lightens my head.
Will we be fire? Will I burn
the tissue paper of our world with a touch?
Or will you claim my lips
within moments and leave me to drown
in a quagmire of desperation?
I close my stanzas, waiting for you,
on overlapped sheets,
wondering if you are real.
|
Tell us what you think. Email talkback@pifmagazine.com
Erin Elizabeth is a Southern girl who grew up in a rural community outside
of Columbia, SC and now makes her home in the wonderfully thick soup of
New England accents, primarily Providence, Rhode Island. She is currently
paying the bills with the advertising from her online opus, Stirring,
a monthly literary collection, the scant checks she receives for pieces
published on and offline, and of course the baubles sent to me from the
Insomniac Asylum's Poetry Slam (sponsored by Warner Brothers), of which
she is a 16-time winner.
Some recent publications include 2River, Gravity, Disquieting
Muses, Polemic, and Tuesday Café. Awards include third
place and platinum honorable mention from the Amazing Instant Novelist
(sponsored by Barnes and Noble), and Favorite Featured Poet of 1999 by
Poetry Superhighway; Erin is also a five-time winner of Anima's Poetry
Slam (sponsored by Simon and Schuester).
When asked about her inspiration for "Counting" she said:
I composed "Counting" during the beginning of my current
long-term relationship, when we were both college kids. This is a
collection of thoughts each written on its respective day, about desire,
and it's crescendo.
|
