c a r o l i n e    c r e w

 

 

the silver answer rang


a hundred brighter eyes


my door of individual life









































                            the silver answer rang

 

At least let's try to be some
of these sheep
quiet & thought-dead

until the whiteness starts
a ringing in our eyes

do not answer the call

You can ask why
there is a telephone
in the snow

or who is calling
Try to build a tongue
for that voice

dragging you back holding
you down in the cold

if there is something in this world
I love more than you
I am terrified of its face

next









































                            a hundred brighter eyes

 

how do I find your other shapes
when the streets slope us together

here is the earth & this is it's quaking
so little to care beyond one body

but who is actually different

a hundred brighter eyes than mine
make the same physical sounds
unless you think you are an orchestra

but I hear you in the bent-up dark
simpering at a looming forest

the creatures you call out
going nowhere but inside the locked
room of this heart

next









































                            my door of individual life

 

Please drag your feet
to the threshold
of my total individual life,
let your heart pool this whole
wide screen shot—

I am lined up
for the counting: you know
the winning must tax
their own riches.

When this scene replays
before heaven, this heroine
won't have the thrill
of her own lifeboat.

next

CAROLINE CREW is the author of several chapbooks, including the forthcoming Caroline, Who Will You Pray to Now That You Are Dead (Coconut Books). Her work appears in Conjunctions, Salt Hill Journal, and Black Warrior Review, among others. Her full-length collection, PINK MUSEUM, will be out from Big Lucks in 2015. She's online here: caroline-crew.com


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