Lizzy Burnam 🐞

1. Ahead of schedule  
To the cokehead pilot flying east
You must be somewhere 
between Springfield and Columbus by now 
Mom made dinner 
We’re waiting for you 

2. Engineered applause 
To the poet in Topeka
with a stack of handwritten letters 
from the clay-girl you shaped 
She hopes you’re dead
She hates your chronic ghost 
She wants to hear you say, again
to write like hell, to lay words down 
like mad train tracks 
leading out to anywhere but here 

3. Fog 
To the witch with a centipede for an eye 
and tobacco-yellow teeth 
The faults you find won’t ever find me 
Not again 

4. Mirror neurons 
To the lover with a tentative heart
Deep-sea blind as you are
I like your face when it hovers above mine 
and I can hold my breath for a very long time 

5. Archaeology 
To the massacred mummy
with gold still draped around your neck 
and half-digested fruit in your belly
Someday I’ll join you 
as the all-that’s-left-behind
and clutched in my skeleton palm:
A safe-kept secret worth passing on