Disown
I still bleed, cut from her tree.
I’m sick again, I say.
But he tears me out.
Her voice withheld adds years in bed
since the cutting of bond begins.
The bones of my arms are broken.
He blocks me from mom’s phone.
When stems start starving their leaves,
dying is some kind of agony.
But somehow I survive.
Nerve Fibers Do Not Fray Calmly
When ripped from skin,
they first dig in, spreading claws to grab, to stall,
till raw are the marks left behind.
As crabgrass hearts are pulled from lawns,
their root hairs feel the snap,
sending messages to their deaths.
The mind burns alive up from the nerve tips.
Don’t touch them or I will die.
Two lifetimes ago, Catherine Zickgraf performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. Her work has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Pank, Victorian Violet Press, and The Grief Diaries. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Aldrich Press.
Watch and read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com
