In Season
You replace my joints with pain
...........................My skin cannot protect me
...........................You don't even have to break it
to bend my back & slow hinges let me walk
I can't even run from you
....................No walls can keep you out
....................You are all the air
....................You cloud the day
....................light the dark in strings of fire-rain
Every wall falls down for you
I will not fall down for you
................................I will breathe this air
................................I will tell your name
....................................to everyone who hears:
On the Chair, Forgotten Name
Leaves always leave their veins last
.......eaten by insects & states of ice
Leaves always remain
..................in some stage of decay
..............in soil, on the branch
.......Leaves
..can't say when I saw them last
...........or if my veins will stay
.....elastic bonds replace these chains
when you're done with me
& find the next
Overeducated Girl
.....I am a woman
.....I do not love
..................when you tell me your bed is cold
...................I do not think
you mean with those white crystals
fill only empty hearts
.......................think you mean your heater's out
advise plastic around hot water
instead of my warm skin
.........................which is cold, which is cold
.....I am a woman
.....I do not love
....................but tell me numbers
....................of those who have died
....................and I'll feel, I'll feel
....................I'll speak
....................................irrational
Warm Snap
Give me the cold...........breaks glass from plaster
............................. stained walls from windows
takes over my bones
....................evenly into aches
unlike your hands (their memories
pressure in the coracoid process head of the humerus
.................glenoid & acronium
sharper in trapezium hamate lunate
........................................Give me the cold
sends pain down through my neck to lungs
and doesn't have the hands
............................to gather water
............................force it down
...................................and threaten filling them
I want to breathe even when it hurts
.................. most when it hurts
......................................Most when you tip back my head
.......................................and I can't cough again
....................................Give me the cold
so I can feel underneath the ice
..................I'm still alive
Elizabeth Kate Switaj teaches English at Shengda College of Zhengzhou University in China's Henan Province. She has also taught ELL in Brooklyn and various locations in Japan. Her chapbook, The Broken Sanctuary: Nature Poems, is available from Ypolita Press. She edits Crossing Rivers into Twilight . Personal site: http://www.elizabethkateswitaj.net/
