LIZ BOWEN

Image by Rachel Sipser

from Compassion Fountain

WHEN THE ISSUE IS MY TONE I DOUBLE DOWN
 
                                   TONE                 DOWN IN THE FLORAL GUTTER
 
EAT AND EXPEND                 YEAST BABY
 
                                        INHERITANCE           OF FOUL BADGES
 
                      DON’T U DARE HOLD ME
 
                      U LINEAGE OF CELLS
 
                                                         / CELLS 

       SOMEONE ELSE’S GERMAN MEMORIES
 
TONE A SHARP BROWN                      IF YOU CAN IMAGINE
 
            THERE IN THE SHADOW OF THE POLICE HORSE
 
                                                                                             I
 
                                                                                                    CAST
 
                                                                                                                MY
 
                                                                                                                          GENES

foul dumpster fire starter
 
I store my dead weight in my relatives’ psyches
they don’t even know what I look like
 
the blood locker spills over and over
 
a whole fear flowing in slats
 
what do you think it is we hold
 
mutual / what do you conjure
when you say the word “love”

when I say you’re a murderer I mean
 
you have murdered
 
death party line marcher
 
I mean you don’t regret
a reanimated wheel
 
wielding

So Fucking Angry I Could Eat A Horse Lmao
No Worse Than Making A Horse A Cop
Aren’t You Scared Of The Way I Straightface
Killing The Buzz Like A Farmer’s Chemical
Everyone Knows A Predator But
Some People Don’t Know They Know
 
So utterly unable to show appreciation
Next to this singed mustache of a small man
And anyway I’m so hungry I could eat a
King / have you heard about the president’s
Eclipse his leo rising his eclipse in leo
Striking the snake from the lion’s hind quarters
 
So what’s so hard about getting angry
Not sinking one’s thumbs into one’s mouth
Avalanched under three feet of sticks-n-stones
Kindling words that can’t hurt
Expect to be stuck in there
Smoked to the very tip of the tail
 
So did you hear about the
New law I made
About you:
Kiss the ground
Eat the rich
Sever the bloody line

---

LIZ BOWEN is a poet and doctoral student in English and comparative literature at Columbia University. Her first poetry collection, Sugarblood, was published by Metatron Press in 2017, and her work is published / forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, The Atlas Review, Dream Pop Press, and The Wanderer​. She spends a lot of time thinking and writing about unruly bodies; care and desire; and capitalism's demons.