Winterhospital

Winterhospital

March 5, 2014

By DAWN TEFFT

the window is freezing into a lake

and nothing on its surface has vertebrae

I want my oily feathers back

the smell of tin-foil eyes

and catfish bones

 

underneath my skin, everything’s packed

and the day flakes like stream-caught salmon

 

underneath these ceilings, lysol gutters my dreams

turns to vodka        powdered guilt

 

underneath this sheet

pick it up–        the ice        the mentholated everywhere

 

ruin it

 

make it go August-fast

 

 

Dawn Tefft’s poems have appeared in Witness, Fourteen Hills, Sentence, and Court Green, among other journals.

Photo by Flickr Creative Commons user David Breizh

Winterhospital

Related Posts

Dispatches from Mullai Nilam, Marutha Nilam, and Neithal Nilam

VIJAYALAKSHMI
There is fire everywhere, / both inside and outside. / Unaware of the intensity of the fire, / they maintain silence / like the serenity of a corpse. / From the burning fire / bursts out a waterfall tainted in red. / All over the shores have bloomed / the flaming lilies of motherhood.

March 19, 2025

When I Go to Chicago

SHELLEY STENHOUSE
When I Go to Chicago, things break. The last time, on the last day, the pipes in the kitchen burst and flooded my parents’ blonde wood floor. When I’m up in that 87th floor apartment, I look at the sky’s blank expression. I keep the little square office window open for the sliver of nature.

March 5, 2025
Black and white image of a bird with a long neck

Dispatch from Marutha Nilam

SAKTHI ARULANANDHAM
With the swiftness and dexterity / of a hawk that pounces upon a chicken / and takes it by force, / the bird craves / snapping up a vast terrain / with its powerful, sharp beak / and flying away with it. // When that turns out to be impossible, / in the heat of its great big sigh, / all the rivers dry up.

February 19, 2025