Two Poems by Elizabeth Metzger

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FIGMENT DAUGHTER

I had forgotten how to be selfish
with darkness so you were born

all night, laboring in.

I hoped the skull, like a planet,
would be gentle,

yes, for your brain to diminish.

How would we both host empires now?
Whenever you root for my invisible tit

all the love in the world
amounts to negative one.

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I am hoping for my caution to go genetically wrong.

Find a fold among the unrelenting.
Nest there.

The prudest girl in all the city
is sick with cleanness.

She has my blisses in all the wrong places.

I’d like to guide the greyest feather
through a loom that produces nothing.

Enjoyment? It comes apart in my hand.

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