Severance by Susan Lewis

Severance

1.

left in time

            for the gasp

            (what a blade can do)

            (clod of dirt)

Do you have an answer to this shadow?

Do you have a measure for this scent?

            (more afraid or vacant)

            (back turned on high flame)

While misted eyes harden to pebbles,

            fallen leaves ground underfoot.

Pass logic,

            pass the obedient word.

The body idling,

            the mind laboring for handles

            (convert abandonment to what should be).

A matter of anything but defeat.

            (Convert anger to the misted gaze).

For two lives split these minutes,

            save them—

                        for zero turn your back

                                    on their slow leak.

That we must fail a given,

            the salt of surprise until you turn your back,

                        this stopped start

                        (turn back)

2.

string of sapped balloons, for instance

            (breeze-bumped)

            (tender salvage)

snowflakes dying on your cheek 

            (tower of light)

pearled moon in the solid sky

            (dark flowered air)                                         

closed throat stoking the body’s fire,

            bright heat to begin & end us:

           

            the world too beautiful

                                    despite these flaked years:

a sharp thing to pierce our weak keening

            + rest

            or fade,

an end to this terrible abundance.

Dull & cruel

                        shot with beauty:

linoleum streaks clouds in a western sky,

hoarse neglect of crowded metal howl of passion,

murder lust missed caress—


_______________

Susan Lewis is the author of AHow To Be Another” (Cervena Barva Press, forthcoming 2013), “Commemorative Edition” (White Knuckle Press, forthcoming 2013), AAt Times Your Lines@ (Argotist e-Books, 2012), “Some Assembly Required” (Dancing Girl Press, 2011), “Commodity Fetishism,” winner of the 2009 Cervena Barva Press Poetry Award, and “Animal Husbandry” (Finishing Line Press, 2008).  Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and published in a great number of journals, includingAtlanta Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Boog City, Cimarron Review, Eclipse, Fact/Simile, Monday Night, The New Orleans Review, Phoebe, Raritan, Seneca Review, Verse (online), and Verse Daily.  She is Editor of MadHat Press and Managing Editor of MadHat Annual and MadHat Lit. Her website is www.susanlewis.net.