Elizabeth Burnam, 2 Poems

Vignette of a Hotel Room Before Dawn           

In this itchy, muggy place we once called a palace, 
you are pretending to sleep in the wide bed, 
draped like a costume ghost in white sheets, 
cigarillo breath blowing stiffly toward the door. 

The TV is blinking quietly back at me, bright 
as morning. A few more hours, just. A few more 
hours, just. My heart sits empty as a cardboard
toilet paper roll. You said you'd been dreaming 

of the apocalypse, gangs of iron teeth grinding,  
children crying, their splintered knuckles dragging 
on uprooted floorboards. You woke up screaming,
"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" 

Your soft hands perverted with violence. At night 
I shut the fan off just to spite you. The linen damp 
with sweat. I touch my nose, check for blood. 
A few more hours, just. A few more hours, just.

*******************************************************

We Never Noticed            

Texture of thighs warped by welts,  
the sound of her skin crying out,   

an asterisk. The decay evident  
in her small mouth, rumors sprawling   

through the weeds like purple deadnettle,  
only to devour the rain.   

It was a long dark drive, she said,  
with her voice in her hands,   

and the smoke clung to her like burdock.  
We warned her against feeling  

so terribly alive, rampaging  
bare through mud and moss  

as if loss itself would blossom  
in her like victory. As if   

the victory is in stripping down  
to nothing but night and brutal honesty,   

looking out through windchilled eyes 
and wondering. How ill her gaze,   

how strange and yellow her questions.  
Sister of bruises, always shifting shape.    

But she was a poet, she wore passion  
like a third-degree burn.  

In the morning, by the grace of god,  
she stood up and dried off.