Anxiety

She writes, “implacable these gods” and checks

her shoulder for an angel, if he were

there, he might say how to bring herself around to less

confusion: instead, alone, she churns

“no one ever told me how I ought to think

of freedom: whether it might mean:

 a sort of wryness to impediment…”  & trails off: scribbles ink

& wants to be unseen

cincture / suture / callow

she slivers off a smaller self to set in ink

a set of anxious sonnets: her hands swallow

themselves in repetition: reality winks:

a word has no god: she cuts her arms to bits:

& tries to clean her brain with spit.

Evelynn Black received her MFA from Cornell University. Her poems have appeared in Requited, Peculiars Magazine, and The Seattle Review. She lives in Seattle and is at work on a book about light, and a book about schizophrenia.