Featuring Kelsey Bryan-Zwick

Self-portrait after an Epidural

 

Days like these and

I channel my tortoise shell spirit.

Skin an ancient leatheryness

my eyes watch through body crevice

mask and bouffant cap 

guarding away the winds

I rise before dawn 

moving slowly towards the sun

I cling to the shell of my belongings

I sleep deeply below ground

and only ever weep

when it is raining

 

Overlapping Venn Diagrams

 

My dad and I are stuck in midweek rush hour traffic

the AC doing nothing for the tension of another bad

appointment, another recommendation for surgery

and there we are in the carpool lane, immovable wall 

of cars, when I notice the vehicle in front of us, a black

Maserati with license plate that reads: CT SRGRN

meaning that at least someone is happy, benefiting from 

mine and others’ bad news, bills that flood in like a fury  

and I think did they perform the surgery themselves?   

To remove their own heart? And where do they keep it 

is it in a container as glossy and expensive as this one?

 

The River of Styx and Stones

 

After the last round of floods

I gave up eating meat again

when millions of animals died

with no escape plan

 

Their blood turning rivers red 

with sludge

 

I stopped eating meat after 

I read the article about how

it was the same at prisons

no escape plan⸺how?

 

It was two women with disabilities 

chained up, that died from the cold,

the cold blood in people’s hearts.

 

The Noodle Eater

 

Sitting at Charlie Hong Kong’s

in the corner booth

I imagine him

across the table spread

gnawing my earlobe like zombie lust

I picture it in my brain

feeding with long pointed

chop sticks, twixt his fingers

stuck in my head, his chewing

squirting rooster sauce

red hot all over

the noodles he slurps

I say, “That looks good.”

He smiles, “Yea, 

and most of its vegan!”

Kelsey Bryan-Zwick (she/they) is a Spanish/English speaking poet from Long Beach, California.  Disabled with scoliosis from a young age, her poems often focus on trauma, shedding light on what has been an isolating experience.  Her poems can be found in Spillway, Redshift, Right Hand Pointing, Rise Up Review, and Cholla Needles.  Kelsey is a Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net nominee and her first full-length book of poems, Here Go the Knives, is to be published by Moon Tide Press in January 2022.  You can find her at www.kelseybryanzwick.wixsite.com/poetry and on Instagram @theexquisitepoet.