Linda Strahl

(Murderous Mermaid)

She combs the dreams out of her hair,
a gesture limited by distance—    
a kind of beauty, at the edge of the sea.
 
Here is where you can get nowhere fast,
against the vast scattered sands and folding cliffs
are unbeautiful corpses at the edge of extinction.

She is folding bones of vain & beautiful strangers,
a pair of unbeautiful corpses learning to be human
that cage was for the protection of the captors
 

Authors: Michael Hofmann, Rachel Jamison Webster, Dan Brown, Anthony Opal, Amy Gerstler, Joanne Dominique, David Barber, Rae Armantrout, Daniel Halpern (Poetry Foundation March 2013)

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(Cancer isn’t the problem)

The choir of cheap hacks:
they test themselves with anagrams.

they remember how it’s done-
alms & alchemy with curtains &
assignations draping like heavy quilts.

the doctors stitch my hands, I am dead
on the edge— the day went something,
something, something and then dark--

a sense of place and safety in our bedrooms,
away from the druggist’s pity DO NOT DISTURB—    
slow the whole world down, time is malleable

dueling pendulums- at the age when things
go wrong. I don’t believe a word of praise or
slimy compliments from anyone.

Authors: Andrew Hudgins, Louise Gluck, David Wagoner, Loren Goodman, Conor O’Callaghan, Joel Brouwer, Billy Collins, George Szirtes, Charlene Fix, Richard Wilbur, Randall Mann, Albert Goldbarth, Bob Hicok, H.L. Hix, Zach Finch, Jennifer Michael Hecht (Poetry Foundation May/ August 2005)

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Linda K. Strahl is an alumnus to Lewis University receiving her BA in Creative Writing. She furthered her writing education at Hamline University earning a Masters in Children’s and Adolescent Literature. Her work was last featured in Windows Journal. She currently ignores writing in her personal blog, keeps a steady sales job and lives outside Chicago with her family.