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Prayer Sonnet

By Nikki Wallschlaeger
Poetry•Vol. XXX No. 2 (Summer 2017)

Sewn up again in a data harvest meadow
moving through me as pelvic bowl thunder
to learn how to laugh at their indifference
Revenge of the Chattel is not being shown in
the popular gendarme art houses
blood heavy as the iron binding us together
public wordplay is called getting dragged
the violence of daily metaphor
in our very real world
these solvent metaphors are true
Hell investigates life with great opportunity
my lil candle mouth kindling for the wounded
when the stars are committed to the worst timing
& no one wants to get out of bed in the morning

Nikki Wallschlaeger
Nikki Wallschlaeger’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in The Brooklyn Rail, LIT, jubilat, Apogee, Georgia Review, Denver Quarterly, Spoon River Review and others. She is the author of the full-length collection Houses (Horseless Press 2015) as well as the graphic chapbook I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel from Bloof Books (2016). Her second full length book of poetry, Crawlspace, is forthcoming from Bloof Books in May 2017. She was also an editor for Bettering American Poetry Anthology 2015, a project promoting the work of marginalized writers. She lives in Wisconsin.

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