Issue 7, Winter/Spring 2009

Alisha Marie, by Elizabeth Kate Switaj

waking from nightmare tongues
& teeth to help enunciate
               bites & grazes
she presses
           her eyes until liquid-like
they go back
            and like no liquid
anyone has trusted her to pour
                     let alone examine
go through her curled gray
   matter curled black
hair with skull between
                & don't forget

back into darkness
            classmates teased
     until it was no longer skin
but kernels in muscles & fat
 & blood  glooming  gloaming
 until nearly white

                    she wraps herself
    in this REM tissue
  in that childhood
                     to forget how hands began
  to make her wince
                    & fear to scream
& only to get worse