Two Poems
by Sarah Sloat
Sunday in the Town of B.
Clouds pitch their tents
in the anorexic sunshine.
Underneath, a flush of silence
stiff as a puritan's chin.
Quiet, please. There are skeletons
in the dandelions, and even the wind
has been banished, the untidy one.
On the corner, it crouches 'round
the crank of a hurdy-gurdy.
Even so, I'm sure I'm missing something.
I put my good hand over my good eye.
Behind a window, carpenters
construct a saint with a pair of crutches.
On a stoop, a natty broom
finds no work to do.
A woman upstairs cries out her lot.
Rest assured she'll be blamed for it
and burned at the stake
in the town square of B.
if she doesn't stop.
Day of the Body
The week undoes us.
On Sunday, the neighborhood
limps to the Church of Rent Souls.
For me it's the day of the body.
I get as bare-faced as possible.
Flat on the floorboards
I pray, 'unwrap my wrists,
Lord, bring me back my bones.'
More About Sarah Sloat:
Sarah Sloat was born in the 60's in New Jersey, where she
attended university. A lifelong reader of poetry, she began writing
about two years ago. Sarah lives with her husband, daughter and son in
Frankfurt, Germany, where she works for a news agency. Her poems have
appeared in Snakeskin, Stirring, The Rose and Thorn and Pebble Lake
Review, among others.
You can email Sarah at sloatsj@yahoo.com.
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