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Zefyr Lisowski​

Sunday Mass, 1891

          Lizzie
 
“Lizzie has been a morning teacher in the mission school connected to
the parish, and has always been very active … in the work of the
church.”  - NY Herald, Aug 6 1892

 
In church, our lips move silently to the hymns.
By lips, I mean: our throats. The whispers
in church are so mean, Father
tormented by his pettiness.
By our, I mean: Mrs Borden.
By our, I mean: my father.
By our, I mean: me.
Don't absolve me from this.
I am in the pews, singing
the songs like they are his body,
and am fourteen again
--
still learning how to keep a secret,
lock a bedroom door.
Don’t absolve me from this.
By throats, I mean as follows:
last week I taught at the mission,
same as any other. Children
surrounded me as I held up the flimsy
paperback, pointed to the illustration
of Christ in the garden. My voice
felt aflame, as if I couldn’t say
the words I had planned.
But they came out anyway:
This is what it means to feel,
I said, pointing at His tears.
 

This is what it means to feel alone.


There's been a death. Of course no one knows what to do, 1892

          Emma        
  
My brow is thick, my hands heavy.  I redraw
my face every day in this tumescent heat—hoping
 
for an almost showy sadness. I am nothing compared to my
sister. Journalists say “remorseless” to describe her rouged
visage. As if painting only exists to create new emotions.
As if kindness were an aesthetic choice.
 
If there was anything Mrs. Borden knew, it was that—the way she buried those garden pears
          inside her pies.
Face powdered into blankness. How can any of us
 
compete with her secrets? I tell Lizzie, of course she knew
what we said of her. She knew everything:
 
how molasses covers up the festering sweet
of rot. Makeup, lockbox, little hole
in the ground. Grief is made
 
by its performance. Am I bereaved?
 
I am bereaved. Look at me: I wear
my suffering on my skin. I wear my skin
on top of my other skin.



Body Wrench

            Emma
 
When I am burgled, I know what happens
--
Our walls are so thin. Our skins are also walls.
Flesh and house both a thing that steals.
Her eyes like teeth.
 
I wrench my body in my sleep,
I dream of it slithering past.
 
I vow the following: abandon you.
My sister. My stepmother. A thorn.
Who else is in this list.
 
When I am burgled, I wait
for it to happen again,
same as everyone here.
 
My abandonment will be floral,
can never go out.
 
I ask questions to the house:
 
Do you ever feel kindness
or warmth, can your flowers bloom
 
I don’t
 
They don’t

​

A Corrective, July 1891

            Abby
 
I talk about Andrew because it’s how I’ve been taught
--
 
The safety in men against the curl of sin in my breast,
 
the crinoline I use to cover where the bruises show.
 
I try so hard to be disciplined, Godly, a “good” “woman”. But young
 
Emma tells me when I first move in of her mother, the box
 
of rage which was her most distinctive feature, and this haunts me.
 
The way Sarah shadows Lizzie, her fingers I imagine more a wolf’s
 
than a woman’s. Her anger. The ghost she casts constricts me
 
as much as that of who her spouse was. My second
 
week in the house I find a letter, unsigned, in the boudoir:
 
“were she still alive, she would kill you immediately.” Neither
 
Borden girl says a word, but that, too, is a reason I’ve turned
 
to my man, sought comfort in he who brought me to this grave:
 
face spiteful, his knobbed spine a rock I cling to against all else.
 
Forgiveness only means that which we can or cannot forget.

 

The Sheets, 1892

            Lizzie
 
I’m well aware of my failings—temper like a brick,
thick, quarrelsome ribs. I am building a body
out of other bodies, a sin haunted by other sins. Maybe
 
the word I’m looking for is a feeling instead:
the jurors’ ogle at me when I entered
the courtroom, paint still splashed bright on my doorstep.
My body brimming with what. With seep. Even
 
younger, I am stained by my mis-conduct
--
when I touch my travelling companion in Europe
many years beforehand, her skin is pillowy, and our room
 
overlooks the Seine. That night, twined together,
do I dream a prediction? The hatchet falling. Father’s body.
I try to be Godly, but His men and their agents are stingy,
 
bitter, full of poison. I try to be sweet and think only
of her, and the others, and the others. My palms are soft
 
and my fingers willowy. Am I regretful? I am
regretful. If I’ve learned anything from
my life, I learned it then: the weight
of a companion,
 
our mutual wretchedness, the scent
of copper, a hand that
holds but only leads astray
--
 





--
Zefyr Lisowski is a trans femme artist and writer currently based in New York. She teaches and studies at Hunter College, edits poetry for Apogee Journal, and is the author of the chapbook BLOOD BOX, from which these Lizzie Borden poems are excerpted (Black Lawrence Press, forthcoming 2019). A Pushcart nominee, Zef's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Muzzle, DIAGRAM, The Felt, and The TexasReview, among other journals. Find her at zeflisowski.com or on Twitter @zefrrrrrrr.

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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
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      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
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    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
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      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
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      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
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      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
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      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
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      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
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    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
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      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
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      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
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      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
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      • e Fall 2022
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      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
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      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
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      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
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      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022