Collage by Barbara Lock
Be like milk for babes,
like mink for traps—
why can’t you be like kept
lamps-under-baskets
withholding your light
your pure, clean, tight self
balled up in my neck?s—
is what he asked before she jumped
out of his mouth, content
to die without sour-faced,
practical surrender.
Barbara Lock is a writer, editor, teacher, and physician. She teaches Narrative Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and edits prose at Variant Literature Journal. Her most recent publications appear in Westchester Review, X-R-A-Y Lit, and juked. She tweets @medpie1. There’s more about her at barbaralock.com.
JMWW 