Executioner as Muse

Abstract

Executioner as Muse Laura Kasischke (bio) I am Schmidt, who was the sonof a hangman, wholike every other boybelieved for a while that my mindwas the pure white flower of my spine.I lived. I died. I became a glimpse of your own face in the window of a train, passingthe barns on fire, the steeples slickened by the rain. I became a long stripe down the center of the highwayin the middle of the night, leading you into the accidentof someone else’s life. I cannot be buriedbecause I am always alive. Like rocks at the bottom of moving waterI have been liberated from my shape—can waver, can climbthe stairs you climb each night, right behind you, stompingall over the moonlightin your little silver shoes, lockingthe door to your room. Pick up the pen, and I am you:Schmidt, the son of a hangman, whobecame a hangman, too. (2001, Volume 22.2) [End Page 62] Laura Kasischke Laura Kasischke has published nine collections of poetry, most recently The Infinitesimals (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). She has received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She teaches at the University of Michigan. Copyright © 2014 Middlebury College Publications