Stifle
 
All my life I've calmed one thing or another
                              SANDRA ALCOSSER
 
 
 
The mare smells my fear.
I shut it off.
 
Precaution blanches even the deepest violets
over time. I have avoided things that rage:
 
high tides, the faithful, passion.
What is replaced when I absorb
 
the worries of others? Rotting timber
appears sound but its insides powder like bone meal.
 
I only grow more delicate
with my refusals to break.
 
I wrap my arms around things that shake.
I am the last thing the broken bird sees before it dies.
 
The doctor says my cold hands and feet
are signs of dread.
 
What is scarier than self-deprivation?
When someone stops loving me.
 
What is calm is hollow
of movement and sound.
 
I hope I do not grow too invisible
to know my own face.
 
The horse carries the ghost of a woman
through the wet wood.
 
 

​L. Sharp lives in Carpinteria, California. She is an MFA candidate at Bennington College. Her erasure poems have been featured at ENTROPY (http://entropymag.org/poetry-from-lauren-wilson/).Through workshops and readings she wants to connect those who are unfamiliar with poetry to its illuminating and transformative powers.