Poetry by Janette Schafer

       Carolina Tarré CC



Bottom


There is always a never again--
a scraping of the knee to the floor
a clutch of desperate arms around
the mid-thigh, eyes wetting
the pubis with repentant tears.




String Theory


A spool of deep indigo curls
in my hand, the kind of blue
one feels in their joints, their sinew.
Unraveling in my fingers,
the thread stretches across
the country, the ocean, a continent.

My insides are a tangle and you
are pulled away from me, fingertips
bleed, clasp the fraying fibers.
Finally, I am altogether undone,
a whisper in your distant palm.




An Invocation

​
Light is something that can be heard,
pierces the duodenum, gathers in
the belly--

whispers. whispers. whispers.

Reaches with skeletal hand
into the heart and now
I am burning, one with
the flame’s aura.

dance. flicker. shimmer.

Golden white, I see the Being inside--
Fire sentient, connects time,
we become one.

I listen.  I am listening.

​
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Bio: Janette Schafer is a playwright, poet, and opera singer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She is a 2017 awardee of the Maenad Fellowship in writing through Chatham University and a 2015 awardee of the Arts MODE Fellowship through New Sun Rising LLC for playwriting and experimental theater.  Recent and upcoming publications appear in Calamus Journal; Zany Zygote Review; Eyedrum Periodically; Nasty Women & Bad Hombres; The Woman, Inc.; B. E. Literary Journal; Big Lit International Writing Festival; Chatham University broadsides.