I am no longer her promise – only
a wasteland of irony, house sketched
in fire and envy. My solitudes and fortresses

my sounds of extinction
carried home. I am an abstract

of secrecy, scurrying chair
drifts towards the corner,

loose landscapes crowd the mirror
centuries sprawl across the couch.

I lay upon this coarse earth –
poise –
convict –

*

Cindy Savett is also the author of the chapbooks The Story of My Eyes (Dancing Girl Press), Battle for the Metal Kiss (H_ngm_n Books) and Rachel: In the Temporary Mist of Prayer (Big Game Books). Her poems can also be found in the anthology Challenges for the Delusional (Jane Street Press) and in LIT, Margie, Heliotrope, The Marlboro Review, 26 Magazine, Cutbank, and other print and online journals. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she lives with her family on the outskirts of Philadelphia, where she teaches poetry workshops to psychiatric inpatients at several area hospitals.