Four poems by Sarah Lilius

A Young Girl Meets Her Older Self

By Sarah Lilius

The first thing I notice are her smooth legs
sticking out from her short dress like two long baseball bats.
 
Her hair is like mine and she smiles too much, looks down
at my dirty face, my wrinkled dress and suddenly frowns.
 
I want to speak but can’t form words from the mill of my mouth.
I’m suddenly a wind stuck and I think she’s going to smack me
 
like our mother does, right across the cheek,
it burns like I imagine acid would burn.
 
My older self hunches like her shoulders are tired
of being shoulders. Aren’t bones supposed to be strong?
 
I want to touch her high heel shoes,
to see if I survive or if I turn into a puddle
 
of future goo. Finally, she opens her red mouth to speak,
you smell like bubble gum and dirt.
 
I smirk and run off, ready to enjoy
what time I have left.




Frightened Girl in the Circus

Girl, use your legs to break open the sky
 
Whisper wind tells us not to fear what we can’t understand
 
When the ice starts to fall, when the fire was lit
 
Girl, remember your heart isn’t there for others to eat
 
Their gray fingers trace the size and place just right
 
Let them pick other organs first
 
And it’s the bearded lady, the tattooed lady that get ahead
 
It’s the clowns who win races that get applause
 
Girl, remember intuition will win you everything,
 
Tulips, two lips, lipstick red doesn’t mean whore,
 
Raped anyway, fondled in the tent, stared at by a million eyes
 
Like all the pages in all the books, beauty is beauty, not for sale
 
Girl, collect the bottles with all the pills, just in case
 
Keep the hard liquor in the old cabinet, just in case

Keep your elbows and knees sharpened, the ink,
 
The circus is in town and you can write on the tent,
 
Write your name, clear and black enough to
 
See from the sky.



Family

Our blood, bound and full
of extra iron—we are never
anemic monsters.
 
We ruffle off skin, sly lizards
that refuse to dust.
We accumulate on furniture.
 
Bones engineered in wombs
don’t always move perfectly,
don’t bend, often break.
 
Hair, trimmed, dyed
red that screams
in sunlight, we’re towers
 
that flash a warning,
that trigger a reaction,
something chemical.
 
Smells like love,
like what we would kill
for: gold and tears, bodies.




What the River Took

               For Jeff Buckley, died May 29, 1997
               For Sam Davis, died April, 29, 2015
             
The sun shines on the Mississippi River this morning,
a gentle beast looks through mud for clues of the water
 
That dark angel he is shuffling in 
 
The slight movement seems to say death is a place,
death will come to us all 
 
This body will never be safe from harm
 
Police pull bodies like heavy fish, hook and line,
open mouths accept the situation, breathe air for the first time
 
And I feel them drown my name
I'm not afraid to go but it goes so slow
 
The river takes with no command, no black hood or sharp weapon,
just dirty water, a disturbed child with hands tight
 
I lost myself on a cool damp night
I'm blind and tortured, the white horses flow
 
The river takes beautiful boys, they sing Hallelujah, Grace, Eternal 
 
Dream asleep in the sand with the ocean washing over
There's the moon asking to stay
Long enough for the clouds to fly me away

Great Mississippi, do you have an ocean complex?
There’s no salt in your eyes, no connection to the moon,
no tsunami arms to pull them in
 
Well it's my time coming, I'm not afraid to die

The sun still shines over water that takes
 
 
*italics are Jeff Buckley lyrics taken from the album Grace


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 About the author: Sarah Lilius lives in Arlington, VA. Some places her poems has been published include Tinderbox, The Denver Quarterly, Stirring, The Lake, Hermeneutic Chaos, Moss Trill, and BlazeVOX. She is the author of What Becomes Within (ELJ Publications, 2014) and her second chapbook is forthcoming this year from Black Cat Moon Press. Her website issarahlilius.com.

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