Of shrill tone and rib yoke, she dreamed nightly,
moan-soaked/stripped mute, lit in burlap moon.
Her patriarch unoathed her, stole her from God’s
pocket, walked her white down an aisle on fire.
Opening ceiling, she rope-slid from bedroom oaks,
rode her soles up the road, boated down the coast
in cesspit coats, throat bones sewn closed. So they
sent smoke scarves roaming veins inside her walls.
And the household awoke, from the halls they fled,
but her locked mouth couldn’t seek air or call out.
Snakes of fire into hair, seeping tides of quiet ache,
she hid in the drapes, awaiting her slow cremation.
Catherine Zickgraf
Two lifetimes ago, Catherine performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. You can find her work in Pank, Deep Water Literary Journal, and 7th-Circle Pyrite. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Kelsay Books.
Find her socially in the Bluesky and watch/read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com