Calcium Ca, 20
She tells she me she doesn’t leave her room much anymore.
Is sleeping, cannot stay awake,
Cannot remember if she dreams.
I picture her hair, how she pushed it back
from her cheek, hair she no longer has.
Shut my eyes tight and I can see
the way the sun spilled on her floor, smell
autumn in her hair. Shut my mouth and I can taste
the milk of every word she’s swallowed
to protect me from this. She never told me
life could feel like drowning,
holding my breath, no shore in sight.
She never told me knowledge could feel
like shards of coral
buried carefully under skin.
She never told me sadness
could cement my heart,
each new sorrow thicker than the last.
All I know is that our bodies betray us.
And in the end, as we leave
are teeth and ash, love and bones.
Elemental, poems written to the Periodic table
Elemental, by Julia Klatt Singer, is a set of poems written to the Periodic table. They are poems based on the nature and properties of the elements, and how they become a part of our lives, both lived and imagined. Like the Periodic table itself, they are about relationships, and what is triggered in the nearness of one another. Price includes shipping and handling
$10.00
juliaklattsinger 
Bravo. Well done. It reminds me a bit of a Maggie Smith Sonnet…
Good Bones
by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
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