Still Here by Erin Cisney
coiled up like snakes
in a february nest,
the afternoon sun
lighting up your scales
and a blank hotel room
I’m heavily medicated,
thinking about chemistry
while fading in white sheets
the tv remote, dead
in my loose fingers
sometimes I imagine
the earth opening
like a hungry mouth
and swallowing me,
only me, and life goes on
as if I had never existed
but today, the sun
gives me sequins
and a man standing
in front of open curtains,
his edges blurred
and on fire
trial and error, a subtle nod
to my parents, how they couldn’t
keep swimming, couldn’t
shake off the heaviness
call me the last, call me
a drop-dead miracle
without the fanfare
june 26th, 2020Erin Cisney is a poet from Lancaster, PA who’s work has appeared in such places a s Spry Literary Journal, Dust Poetry Magazine and rust & moth, among others. Here debut poetry collection, Anatomy Museum, is available from Unsolicited Press.