Poetry by Deborah Rosch Eifert

                 ​Giles Watson CC


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Post-hysterectomy: of angels and archangels


We become open 
from being broken
but what comes of opening? 
here is nail, bone
here, soft fruits
here, a uterus
pink silence
overused            overgrown        cut apart

Here in the shell
of my body
I know 
sounds can live 
deep down 
in bones
a skeleton of music 

Lesser angels have voices 
have song
but I do not join
in their rattled symphony 
they turn from me
from how
a man’s touch 
turned my skin 
to scars
they are too delicate 
to accept
my rough epidermis
the gravel in my voice

If I am broken
let there be rubble 
and storms
let the sun howl
let me have
one more day
to speak untamed
O you archangels 
who growl 
beneath red-splashed wings.





How to Recover


Open your mouth and speak:
dandelions may fall out
cellar stairs may appear, 
silenced stories 
or unwritten psalms
tumble through

words may bubble up
like sticky juice
from a baking pie
betrayal
bladderwrack
orchid, ovenbird
self-preservation
survival

when you wish mist
would disappear you
for fog to envelop your body
stride loud and large
through graveyards
kiss the gravestones
crow laugh 
at passing strangers
go cross a creek barefoot

don’t forget
smear menstrual blood
over your lintel
open wide the doors
uncage your voice 
hang over windowsills
and roar your words
be the womanly thunder
that answers 
all the light


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Deborah Rosch Eifert (@EifertPoetry) is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and the author of the newly released chapbook Sewn from Water, from Uncollected Press. Her work has appeared  in Whiskey Island Quarterly, Constellations, Cathexis Northwest, Persephone’s Daughters, as well as other literary presses, and is forthcoming in Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art. Her work also has been published in several anthologies. She has received an Editor's Choice award from Formidable Woman Sanctuary Press, was named Poet of the Month by Flying Ketchup Press, was a semifinalist in the 2018 Split Rock Review Chapbook Competition, and was First Runner-up in the 2018 Esthetic Apostle Chapbook Contest.  

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