After you left town
Sarah Jefferis
​
I learn that time is warped
to stop thinking crumbs meant
there was or would be bread
to stop chasing what burns
to spoon vows in my own voice
in the morning I pluck the dead
from my bloodstream
one hollow quill at a time
sometimes I call it prayer
other days I call it execution
Jefferis holds an MFA in Poetry from Cornell and a PhD in Writing from SUNY Binghamton. Her poetry books include Forgetting the Salt and What Enters the Mouth (Standing Stone Books 2017). Her poems and essays have appeared in Rhino, The Cimarron Review, Off the Wall, The American Poetry Review, The New Coin, The NYQuarterly, The SOFLO Poetry Journal, The Mississippi Review and other journals.