Safe as Houses

by Laura Schelong


The human world hooks its human thumbs
in open eyes, but again the hole punch sun
wears the whole blue sky as some holy hat,
aureole or areola, and down here, the day
is just starting to fill up, good and sloshing.
Windows are open doors, and I’ve decided
Miles Davis is a martyr, and so is everyone
who’s ever died and never killed. They wear
their deaths like saints. Righteous and right,
I snip the little bows off all my underwear;
I dust my plants, add halos to photographs
of dead family and dress them up: my mom
bears her breasts as epaulettes, dad’s lungs
perch, a vulture, on his shoulder, and Evan,
the veteran, doesn’t qualify. Years of dust
fingerprint my window; I don’t often think
about who lived here before me, but lately
I am imagining my home without furniture,
my body without me; I am hoping my plants
might eat me; I am dancing more. In mirrors
I draw lip-sticked accessories to my murder.
I feel the human world’s hooked fingers find
my pinch pot heart, though I try, try to hide.


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