Tracing dusty footprints, you can be led
to fornix, to tombs, the circus and bars,
to my lupan, my cell, my earthen bed;
what waits is not secret—see what I are?
I’m not a barmaid, an actor or slave;
I’m not being cursed because I had sinned—
I’m earning my keep in this grisly trade.
For that I am traif, but come along in.
I’ll lead you to places you’ve never had;
to hell in a basket: one bloody as.
Elizabeth L. Hodges was legal counsel for the New Hampshire Judiciary for fourteen years. She founded St. Petersburg Review, an independent international review of contemporary literature, in 2007. Blood Sonnets will be published in November. She lives in New Hampshire.
