after Psalm 109: 17-25
Does the center ever hold? I’m liquidine,
the day’s pain a shelter—a canopy
of permissions
a belt so poorly made that I break out
in small injustices—
their dicey ricochet—
the reap and the sow—such easy
malevolence—and YOU
my only conduit.
Let me build
an anxiety castle—a gone house, for storing
the consternation—so I can find it.
This corner, glowing
flagstone and pine—a cranny
for possible breaking.
My father’s oak
cigarette box—its silver
hinges—to close down
over the shadows.
All this
judgment—I stuff it
—sloppy—into my mother’s
dresser drawer—the one
where she kept her secrets.
And on the pantry’s top shelf—
hard to reach—there
I hide the crone.
–
Donna Spruijt-Metz’s poems appear or are forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, American Poetry Review, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. Her books include General Release from the Beginning of the World and three collections forthcoming in 2025: To Phrase a Prayer for Peace, And Scuttle My Balloon (with Flower Conroy), and Wu Wei Eats an Egg (Lucas Hirsch in translation).