I Have Given Up Everything for Poetry
Noelle Kocot

An iron crime goes feebly under, a lair

For the pale and doomed. Who is this

Woman, wrapped thighs rippling under

The sea? Whiteness of a distant time,

 

To bear the knees of silence is a knell

Over a field. Think of how she was unknown,

Think of how all the people said she

Would never be that way again, think of

 

How she gave up everything to follow

Virus words. To her death? Yes, to her death.

The crushed colors have fallen off the self

Like flakes of skin. Recall that one epiphany

 

When buildings swayed in wind and let

Him off, thudding to the gray littered street.

Recall what it meant when she said, I do,

To the thick pelt of words crawling with claws.