Dear reader, it’s true. Your skin covers
bones, muscles, veins, heart, lungs,
the doors out mainly through mouth and anus
also nose, ears, and two eyes.
Those eyes open out of nightmares. Open
to the wonder of stars, trees, your friend’s
smile. In the box of the body bruises and stories
are real as arteries. Closed in, the sad ones
howl, reverberate like wind through rib bones
and spine. Open, the mix of requiems
yes, but also concertos and windows
full of sunflowers. A sonnet is a box, yes.
And a body is a coffin. A resurrection.
When you open it, believe in salvation.
About the author:
Susan Landgraf’s Out of a Land of Alkali and Chromate will be published this spring by Moon Path Press. Previous books include Journey of Trees, Crossings, The Inspired Poet, What We Bury Changes the Ground, and Other Voices. An Academy of American Poet Laureates award resulted in A Muckleshoot Poetry Anthology published by WSU Press in 2024. She’s published more than 400 poems in Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore and others. She served as Auburn’s Poet Laureate from 2018-2020.
Part of our Winter 2025 Issue. New stories, poems, and essays now through February 2025.
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