Michelle Bonczek
The world is a book
and that book is glass
and the men who made the book are glass, and the men who wrote
the book are glass
and the men that read the book are glass and their eyes are glass
the whole world is a glass book its pages blown
to thin leaves with fire and breath
leaves that burn themselves into shapes that the book makers lean into
with their metal fingers, and turn
Obsession
Sarah is slaving over her sewing machine, transforming her lingerie into sexy tablecloths and napkins.
They ate chocolate chip pancakes on Sunday mornings —she will never eat chocolate again.
All those cancelled cups of Guatemalan—she will never drink coffee again. The handcuffs she bought
him on his birthday, the ones he used
on that dirty blonde from Brooklyn, now arrests
will forever remind her of their times together. The blue comforter stained with blood—she will never
bleed again. She will leave the house only in rain.
Wear black on all white occasions.
We tell her she will find a new love
when she least expects it. That he will enter from the darkness
gorging itself on Lake Ontario’s shore, where she will, once again
bathe naked each night in the summer heat, mosquitoes
sinking their thorns into her, her feet buried in wet sand. But right now all she believes in
is the long needle puncturing the difficult thin of black lace,
the water of light blue silk.
Michelle Bonczek Evory is the author of The Art of the Nipple and Naming the Unnamable: An Approach to Poetry for New Generations (forthcoming). Her poetry is featured in the 2013 Best New Poets Anthology and many journals and magazines. She teaches literature in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and mentors poets at The Poet’s Billow (thepoetsbillow.org).