by Suzanne Edison
All in by Suzanne Edison
It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!
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by Suzanne Edison
Maybe it is the shriveled spiders,
looking like compost flakes on the rug that tell me,
these beasts were fornicating and feasting
more than I. Maybe it is the scraping sound
of sow-bug shells, sucked up and spinning
in the vacuum I employ that reminds me
of the ladybug carapaces, dozens
scattered on my dining table, that greeted me
years ago. Then, my mother had been dead
less than a day and I was not there to feed her
ice chips, soothe rattle and wheeze, or shroud
the carcass of her last breath. My memory opens
like a slash of flesh—I am the same age now
as she was then.
Fogging my reflection
in the picture window I watch evening
hug the swelling redbud limbs
as bats drain the air of insects.
But I am not here to grieve.
I want to know about the living
to come. How to navigate by clouds.
How the tree grows around a nail
pounded into it.
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Suzanne Edison’s recent chapbook, The Body Lives Its Undoing, was published in 2018. Poetry can be found in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Naugatuck River Review, Scoundrel Time, Mom Egg Review, Persimmon Tree, JAMA, SWWIM Every Day, and elsewhere. She is a 2019 Hedgebrook alum and teaches at Richard Hugo House in Seattle.
by Suzanne Edison
Who isn’t sick
of being Sisyphus, pushing the rock
of your body daily, up from the bed?
When someone says hypochondriac
all I can think is, give me a shot
of adrenaline irradiate this burden
no pain, no need to gain.
So many tried
and failed treatments I say
give it a name
call it, a filament
spun into tourniquet
anomaly twisted to penalty, an infestation
scaling my nerves.
✷
What about heartache? multiple strains
of arthritis, hers, her child’s,
the husband leaves
she’s a power outage
a walking specter in bruised daylight
what bandage or antiseptic for her plight?
was there an expiration date
for rupture?
pathologic or melancholic,
her grieving—
a trail of gauze.
✷
A man says, “it’s transient”—
he’s seeking
ground—a rock
the war
still resides inside, amps up
his sugared house
bloody lows and highs, twitchy
brood of his eyes
a bilious babble, warbles
like a bird of necrosis
winged psychosis
his fractured peace
begs for measure.
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