Zefyr Lisowski

 

Ingredients for an Axe Girl

If I Did

If I Didn't

Ingredients for an Axe Girl

Insert girl.

Insert wet.

Insert family hurt axe hand.

Insert locks.

Make a box—kindness, hunger, etcetera

Insert pear tree, juice dripping over the chin.

(Increase hunger. Increase doors)

Insert tooth insert tooth insert tooth

She is lonely, and covered with blood.

Her flesh her body taut with thirties.

She is older.

Increase wealth. Increase grief.

I am not trying to build sympathy

but empty beds terrify me,

a thing howling and encrusted

outside the window. House like a coffin.

Decrease distance.

The summer heating like a firing chamber—

tender appearing in spurts as evaporated milk

Questions appear:

Do you know the throng of cut, of bird?

Do you know this weight toward becoming?

What to do with all this unfurling—

Insert box, insert hand, insert blood box

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If I Did

- Lizzie

Then I must sleep in a sheet twisted

tight with blood, stomach heavy through the night.

Then I know the scream of the ferry.

Then “family” a word that stirs and stirs.

What use are doors in this weather? Of course

we hear everything— Father’s moans ghost

through walls like cheesecloth. Here is a day.

Here is another.

There’s nothing to do but eat,

piling one plate then the next, pears

plummeting from the backyard brown as

blood. Father never

talks anymore, and Mrs Borden

changes in my sleep to someone

who is still alive. We always lock our

rooms. My nightgown the finest terrycloth

or linen. Look at my face, my flushed cheek,

my lips. Look at my tenderness.

If I told you it was an intruder who did it,

would you take my hand in yours

and touch my trembling back?

It was. It was. Oh God, it was.

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If I Didn’t

- Lizzie

“Not guilty” holds meanings in its skin too,

and I am deeply acquainted with all of them—

a series of cells dancing between my eyes,

fingers corpsing on the table, the investigator

peeling wallpaper from the parlor. I’m used

to others’ stares, their pauses. I’m used to silence.

Am I haunted? I am haunted. Even in the courtroom,

as they mouth the acquittal, I start dreaming

of another life—surely I can find happiness. I know

this because I ignore my dreams, and eat food

regularly. I know this because I’ve read stories,

miraculous instances of angelic visitations,

shipwrecks that reverse themselves, a fire that,

suddenly, stops burning. Do you see it? Kindness

flocking like birds? I’m talking about a forgiveness

so close to touching you, you can taste it—

there it is, the yard over.

There it is, climbing the fence.

There it is, raising thin hand to rap,

delicately,

at the parlor door.

Answer it.