Three Poems

Abstract

Three Poems Laura Sweeney (bio) ghazal: in the liminal She stares at the pool of the Taj Mahal, her reflection in the liminal. She longs to drown in sun's silhouette, fade like the mosque in the liminal. She gazes at lotus flowers that float along, admires their persistence to push through muck into the liminal. She sighs from societal ideals and longs to retract into the liminal. She abhors the arrogance that all women long to live as a princess. An illusion she rejects in the liminal. She longs to flee her homeland, search for amnesty, name a bloodbath, create a royal strike in the liminal. She longs to write a manuscript, a memoir, something like Angola Could Be Like That, iconic in the liminal. She swallows dust from lands she longed to touch and in exhaustion turns again to trek in the liminal. She is world weary, longing to exhale the public's toxic smoke into the liminal. [End Page 148] on becoming a woman writer I never could have guessed a dream would hatchin the heat of a perforated ear drum, in thearchitecture of my mind words and phrasesladen with syrup and blood and the quaint delusionthat poets can crack open the sky, in pitchersof sangria I was willing to sacrifice being awell-heeled woman with a designer handbagand a pricey haircut—I wanted to be a scribespinning sugar, tangling libidos, experimentingwith form and flair, perhaps inspiring prayer bycapturing a pink-blue sky—but the truth is I haven'teven begun to write myself out of the box. [End Page 149] i am toni jo henry Executed in Lake Charles, Louisiana, November 28, 1942. siphoned, jettisoned,stonedfor advocating for herself.A brothel womanversus a brotherhood.The term holy-rollersrolled through my mindas I prayed for exonerationfrom my crime of passion.They sought electrocutionbut they didn't knowa prison cell was a roomof my own and a homethat grace built.Though I didn't readthe Holy Book and it's notin the court transcripts,Father Wayne said God wrotemy name in the sandand next to it, Pardon.They say they still findflowers on my grave,evidence that grace endures.When they buried mein Orange Grove Cemeterythey didn't know that a womanof any repute could becomea Louisiana legend. [End Page 150] Laura Sweeney laura sweeney facilitates Writers for Life in central Iowa. She represented the Iowa Arts Council at the First International Teaching Artist's Conference in Oslo, Norway. Her poems and prose appear in fifty plus journals in the States, Britain, Canada, and China. Her recent awards include a residency at Sundress Publication's Firefly Farms, a scholarship to the Sewanee Writer's Conference, and participation in the Kaz Creative Nonfiction Conference as well as St. Petersburg Review's Summer Literary Seminar. She is a PhD candidate in English studies and creative writing at Illinois State University. Copyright © 2022 Frontiers Editorial Collective, Inc.