Kelly Cressio-Moeller
Self-Portrait as Empty Reliquary
Let me sit here for ever with bare things ~ Virginia Woolf
no saint has ever lived here
the ultrasound: myomas dine by an open fire
body-truthing the bog: dead leaves & asphodel, the strangest fruit, the
never-born
thumb-worn rosary — beads now stick in my teeth
is barren ground any less sacred?
silver-leaf my insides, place a candle in my hollow, follow, fallow
even broken glass refracts light
suture — specter — sepulcher
but look what you have made in fall’s gold air — hectares plowed,
harrowed, hallowed
stone webs of scar-tissue tracery
without my cervix, I am no less queen
open me, see there’s nothing left to give
to no longer smell of blood
no saint will ever live here
Kelly Cressio-Moeller has new work forthcoming in the Hermeneutic Chaos Press anthology, “The Sonnets”,Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Previous publications include Boxcar Poetry Review, burntdistrict, Crab Orchard Review, Gargoyle, Southern Humanities Review, THRUSH Poetry Journal, and ZYZZYVA among others. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net. She is an Associate Editor at Glass Lyre Press. Visit her website at www.kellycressiomoeller.com
Return to March 2016 Edition
Let me sit here for ever with bare things ~ Virginia Woolf
no saint has ever lived here
the ultrasound: myomas dine by an open fire
body-truthing the bog: dead leaves & asphodel, the strangest fruit, the
never-born
thumb-worn rosary — beads now stick in my teeth
is barren ground any less sacred?
silver-leaf my insides, place a candle in my hollow, follow, fallow
even broken glass refracts light
suture — specter — sepulcher
but look what you have made in fall’s gold air — hectares plowed,
harrowed, hallowed
stone webs of scar-tissue tracery
without my cervix, I am no less queen
open me, see there’s nothing left to give
to no longer smell of blood
no saint will ever live here
Kelly Cressio-Moeller has new work forthcoming in the Hermeneutic Chaos Press anthology, “The Sonnets”,Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Previous publications include Boxcar Poetry Review, burntdistrict, Crab Orchard Review, Gargoyle, Southern Humanities Review, THRUSH Poetry Journal, and ZYZZYVA among others. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net. She is an Associate Editor at Glass Lyre Press. Visit her website at www.kellycressiomoeller.com
Return to March 2016 Edition