print previewback EMILY SKAJA
It’s impossible to keep white moths
from flying out of my mouth.
I am 25. I paint the door blue. I go in when he tells me
to stay out. Next to a billboard
in Philadelphia that says Your Message Here,
I am sewn into a dress. On Broad Street, ravens
lurk on the Divine Lorraine Hotel as if to say
Always a corpse flower, never a bride.
Facing south, I can make myself apologize
for anything. My voice is thick—a shroud of bells.
But will I listen. What I hear in the dark
is my own blood stalking me
like a drunk boy wild on cheap gin
swinging his hammer
to nail a tree swallow flat to a barn door.
A bird is a vessel. It carries a field.
There are nights when I sleep on the couch
lift macramé lace to my cheek from a hope chest.
Outside, a teenager shoots a teenager shoots a teenager
The cops come to measure the street.
They ask me, What did you see? I saw a hole in the whole of the picture.
When he comes home late from his fight at the bar,
I hold a cold rag steady to his knuckles. I think I can love someone
who cares enough to bruise for me.
He touches his thumb to the corner of my mouth,
pulls back my lip to consider my teeth. 
Figure of Woman Coming Out of a Wall
It’s Impossible to Keep White Moths