Lisa Higgs
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Someone's Always Trying to Kill You

Against the dark sleet pushed aside
by wiper blades last night, her questions
about god as what was before science
exploded void into cosmos. Unknown.
Is violence god, or men making god

both bomb and shield against his will?
Secrets of night driving: scanning
roadsides for any glint off low eyes,
catching shadows in motion, ditch
a pitched pit skirting cones of light.

I’m unconvinced by awe and grace.
Hard to feel their presence in tonight’s
black sky leaking small knives of ice.
Unknown. What does omnipotence mean
in a world of men who skin women alive?

A world of no refuge, of women crossing
streets in dead hours, pulling children
by the wrist out of sleep. We brake
for three deer crossing field to field
by railroad tracks and flash our brights
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to warn oncoming traffic. God of gaps,
of the highway’s well-timed stream,
cars slowing, speeding, paying no mind
to pilgrims passing in search of food
and shelter on a bitter spring night.

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Lisa Higgs is a recipient of a 2022 Minnesota State Arts Board grant providing creative support for individual Minnesota artists. She has published three chapbooks, most recently Earthen Bound (Red Bird). Her reviews and interviews can be found online at the Poetry Foundation, Kenyon Review, the Adroit Journal, and the Colorado Review.

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