Our Bodies a Bulb in the Cold (A Cento)

Wintering in a dark without windows,
it is Tate and Lyle we live on, instead of flowers.
We ball in a mass,
Black
Mind against all that white,

solitary confinement our Bodhi Tree,
isolation our mountain, doing hole-time
like retreating to the wilderness,
everything of value
carried without hands.

We chose to swim by turning
inward, a depth in our being
we can tap into. What
will they taste of,
our Christmas Roses?

 

 

(sutured from Sylvia Plath’s “Wintering” and Craig Ross & Steve Champion’s “Everything of Value You Must Carry Without Hands”)

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Devon Balwit's work can be found in The Worcester Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long form issue), Tule Review, Sugar House Review, Plough Quarterly, Poetry South, saltfront, Rattle and Grist among others. For more, see her website at: https://pelapdx.wixsite.com/devonbalwitpoet