By Suzanne Edison
Light and movement destroy
the materiality of bodies—Futurist Manifesto
Speed of atoms colliding, heating,
like our arguments boil and steam, splitting
us apart.
The guns you insist
on keeping, locked and stowed, the ammo separately
hidden, incite my fears: speed of
bullets, bodies as wave or particle. Would you
or I...ever turn against…in anger
do they keep us...
our happiness hanging, Damoclean?
We refuse to sit, nothing stays
still. Salt, ammonia, the bitter
chloride of our helplessness, molten.
I want those damn guns gone!
You buy a cabinet for them.
Quartzite threads of us dissolve, flow
with our words. As fast as these black letters
absorb, convert
to heat, rising off the white reflective page,
lines appear. I am either pulling you in or
casting you away.
Lines on your face. Our voices
retreat. You hear me
calling from another room.
About the Author
Suzanne Edison’s chapbook of poems, The Moth Eaten World, was published in 2014. Her work can be found in What Rough Beast, Bombay Gin, The Naugatuck River Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Ars Medica, Spillway, The Examined Life Journal, and elsewhere. She lives under a wet sky in Seattle. www.seedison.com.
Bullets into Bells 