Today's poem is by Sasha West

Cassandra
       

It wasn't easy to see, to say: I carried
in my body all the silences: the king laughing
while the men climbed out of my mouth
from a wooden horse's belly: the cop who
said I'd earn the hole in my door the man
would punch: No one believed me the way
no one believed the air: Still, I will tell you
from the back of my throat, the words still
singeing: All these centuries, the gods kept
churning out tragedies for us to pass
by, shrug off: As they evolved, the gods
learned to slow kills down, below the speed
of human naming: so from the inside
disintegration looks like a normal life:
The gods are cruel because they are
bored: they can buy anything: I have taken
my voice past the threshold, past
the lintel: I am speaking to you now from
inside the wildfire while it burns the hair
from my body: I don't expect you will listen

Tweet
Copyright © 2023 Sasha West All rights reserved
from Ecotone
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission