CLAIRE

When the black & white friars
opened their mouths to pray
            they cd only circle the crumbs
    she threw them from the beggars’ bread
Their robes had tightened

             into fins
                 and I thought I’d
               pissed      finally
      from the baptism
           down their darkened aisles

              but I close my eyes
                           and am reborn

                                 In Okazaki
                        she
            is dark curls
                      escaping pigeons
                 Under last month’s festival

                 blossoms...




CHICKEN SKIN

Roast me until lesions horn the scars
  that taught me not to touch the stove
                                    (and I don’t forget
                                     but want to dream
                                             of sun-laced trees
Roast me until macules
mottle hands   yellow-black & rust.

Then strip me slow
       careful to let
                blue flow blue,

As touching the beaked who cannot speak   you never do.




OVER THIRTY

dragon-fed pond
greener than grass
behind knee-high
                 bamboo-painted
                  aluminum




Elizabeth Switaj's writing has appeared in The Iconoclast, spooncore, and Seeking The Lotus. It is also slated for future appearance in Indefinite Space, HazMat Review, Neon Highway, Eratio, Diagram, Electric Yeti, and Tin Lustre Mobile. She completed her BA in 1999 at The Evergreen State College and her MFA at New College of California in 2003. Currently she resides in Anjo City in Japan's Aichi Prefecture.


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