by Elisabeth Adwin Edwards

Call me Stellar Demise, my hemoglobin pulses with the last exhalations
of stars. I have cast myself

into a cup, a scaffold, a fence, a pipe, a cup. That which is foundational,
marks the edge of a loving space, or fills

to overflowing, that which can be used as weapon, but more often
the thing that spills

over. Well-seasoned skillet, molasses, rust. Some days I’m so hard, heavy. Others,
so magnetic I can't move. I have carried water

no one would want to drink, water not fit for a child to bathe in. Cells of the fetus
I aborted at age twenty-one

bored through the blood-brain barrier and his tiny double-helixes corkscrewed
my mind. He still courses

through me. I imagine his eyes the color of black ore, like his father's. Sometimes
I dream him into a strong body, a body

outside of myself, a body I can touch, and I become a spigot, all I do is weep.
Another star died and found its way here.

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It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIMEvery Day's archives!

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Elisabeth Adwin Edwards' poems have appeared in The Tampa Review, CALYX, B O D Y Literature, Pedestal Magazine, Posit, and elsewhere; her prose has been published in HAD, CutBank, On The Seawall, and other journals. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and Best New Poets. She has taught her popular online class, "Living Attentively: Journaling through Poetry and Observation", through Grackle & Grackle Literary Enterprises. A native of Massachusetts, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and teen daughter in an apartment filled with books. See elisabethadwinedwards.com.

by Elisabeth Adwin Edwards

Call me Stellar Demise, my hemoglobin pulses with the last exhalations

of stars. I have cast myself

into a cup, a scaffold, a fence, a pipe, a cup. That which is foundational,

marks the edge of a loving space, or fills

to overflowing, that which can be used as weapon, but more often

the thing that spills

over. Well-seasoned skillet, molasses, rust. Some days I’m so hard, heavy. Others,

so magnetic I can't move. I have carried water

no one would want to drink, water not fit for a child to bathe in. Cells of the fetus

I aborted at age twenty-one

bored through the blood-brain barrier and his tiny double-helixes corkscrewed

my mind. He still courses

through me. I imagine his eyes the color of black ore, like his father's. Sometimes

I dream him into a strong body, a body

outside of myself, a body I can touch, and I become a spigot, all I do is weep.

Another star died and found its way here.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

After a successful 20-year career as a regional theater actor, Elisabeth Adwin Edwards has shifted her focus to poetry; her work has appeared in Rogue Agent, ASKEW, Serving House, Melancholy Hyperbole, Menacing Hedge, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and other publications. Her chapbook, The Way I Learn To Take It Like A Girl, won the 2018 These Fragile Lilacs Chapbook Contest (judged by William Fargason). She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.