Literary Orphans

Confidences by Elizabeth Light

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If someone tells you a five is a one

Don’t believe them. Five is five

And one is nothing at all.

 

If someone with eyes like bleeding beets asks you

To spill your secrets, keep your trap shut.

Keep it shut and silent as a mushroom.

 

If the mirror is a ton of climbing vines

Climb up them – careful not to split a single leaf.

 

The moon is not your aunt who said she cared

Then went out shattering pumpkins in

The worst night of your year.

 

It’s important to keep in mind

Your year is not the spider’s year,

Nor the dog’s, but the snake’s itself, her own.

 

Soon, it’s going to coil back around,

Grinning to itself, hissing a new language.

O Typekey Divider

Elizabeth Light is a doctoral candidate at Fordham University focusing on medieval English literature. Her poetry has appeared in the Columbia College Literary Review, Driftwood, Release, What You Do/Eat a Peach, and elsewhere. She recently returned to Connecticut after living in Luxembourg City.

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O Typekey Divider

–Art by Barbara Florczyk

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