Mute
In the bedlam of the liver ward the poisons
seep upstream. My neighbor, snake-mean,
curses in Spanish, pendejo, when they ask for
her name, my own throat ghosted into
a phantom, an owl song, a burial at sea. Bare
backed blizzards flutter behind my eyelids,
a giantess glued together inside my boiled gut
bred of hushed whispers. The woodcutter
unsnarls my copper veins, botanical as cattails
while slats strap me to the bed and shadow
puppets sprawl into supernovas on the walls,
my mind a tinderbox of unsent letters. I’m a splendid
shut-in. Beneath my tongue white egrets walk
a tightrope and I grapple like an animal for language.
after Ezra Sun
Raised in Louisiana on new-wave music, horror films, and Grimm fairy tales, LeeAnn Olivier is a neo-Southern Gothic poet. She is the author of two chapbooks: Doom Loop Wonderland (The Hunger Press) and Spindle, My Spindle (Hermeneutic Chaos Press). Her writing has appeared in many journals, including The Missouri Review, NOVUS, and Exposed Brick Lit. She is a survivor of domestic violence, breast cancer, and an emergency liver transplant. She teaches writing at a community college in Fort Worth, Texas, where she hopes to help her students navigate their own traumas through creative expression.