WILLY

by Elizabeth Switaj

 

 

this dangerous
habitual
criminal, I
fingered soles
& pounded leather,
shaping shoes by smell

as much as by the shapes my hands
rested in when their force
reached the limit set
by material resistance

my resistance
was never material
in June, if soap
-y smell of new
flowers doesn’t lie, I said
my absent eyes
                                  that never grew

                                  make me no worse than you
                                  to the young girl who asked
                                  how much I ate without giving back

                                  the soldiers’ feet would bleed
                                  sooner
                                  without me

               and in a couple weeks, I was locked
               with a more chemical
               soap smell
       and something like shit and rust

nurses, I think, told me when to sleep, and I
don’t trust the lengths of their days

so I thought it was forever
and not just eight more months
before they put me on the bus

to suffocate & burn  at the age of thirty-five

 

 

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