Poetry by Sarah Daly

      Michael Levine-Clark CC




I Did Not Fear the Ghosts 
 
 
When our house was haunted, 
with the chairs levitating so we
could not sit, and the glasses shattering
so we could not drink, and the food snatched
from our mouths so we could not eat, 
I did not go to Lisa’s, but to Dan’s.
And I let him press against me,
while the stereo played too loud
and I let him smoke from a pipe, and swipe
his Dad’s beer.  His breath was stale,
and his lips were coarse, 
but he could breathe life in me, the life
which was mocked and threatened
every night.  
 
Though monsters resided 
in our house, I never forgot 
how they come in every form,
eager to peel those slender strips
of consciousness into ribbons
of panic.  

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Skinning the Mind
​

When I say that I don’t care
that it doesn’t matter,  
the color dissipates slowly, 
your noise amplifies, 
and the slightest movement
raises my hairs; I weigh
the benefits of lie and safety
versus honesty and the danger 
of peeling my skin 
layer by layer, excavating
to the inner core, hollowing
out my defenses until I am
a raw heart, with nothing to 
beat against.  

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Sarah Daly is an American writer whose fiction, poetry, and drama have appeared in forty-three literary journals including The Inflectionist Review (nominated for Best Spiritual Literature Awards, Orison Books), Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, The Fictional Cafe, and The Pomona Valley Review, and Last Leaves Magazine.