print previewback ELLEN BRYANT VOIGT | from Kyrie
How we survived: we locked the doors
and let nobody in. Each night we sang.
Ate only bread in a bowl of buttermilk.
Boiled the drinking water from the well,
clipped our hair to the scalp, slept in steam.
Rubbed our chests with camphor, backs
with mustard, legs and thighs with fatback
and buried the rind. Since we had no lambs
I cut the cat’s throat, Xed the door
and put the carcass out to draw the flies.
I raised an upstairs window and watched them go—
swollen, shiny, black, green-backed, green-eyed—
fleeing the house, taking the sickness with them.
