It was the way her eyes rolled
as she flashed her pack of cigarettes
while I explained the impact of environmental
illness, as if anyone who acknowledged
the needs of the body, who didn't do
what they wanted despite physical limitations,
was a whiney little roach
as evidenced by her smoking while sporting
an oxygen tank for advanced-stage emphysema;
I'd had it with the family code of fuck-your-body-
till-it-drops exemplified by our matriarch
so I got in her green-eyed face fanned with brilliant
orange hair and said: I don't like you and if you want me
to feel anything positive about you when you die, then you
need to demonstrate a shred of human decency now,
and then I moved to the other side of the bed
and perhaps she came out from where she'd crouched
between bed and wall, and left
but for me she simply disappeared.
Elizabeth Weaver
is a two-time semi-finalist for "Discovery"/The Nation poetry award and received Special Mention for the Soul-Making Literary Prize, sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women. Her prose and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including RATTLE, 5AM, Cezanne's Carrot, Journal of Truth and Consequence, decomP magazinE, The Centrifugal Eye, riverbabble and HOT FLASHES: sexy little stories and poems. Though focused on poetry in her graduate studies, Elizabeth is completing her first novel, the main character of which has a photoblog at bonegirlpix.wordpress.com. Some of Elizabeth's writing and art are posted on elizabethweaver.wordpress.com.