Elizabeth Kate Switaj

Model   Assignment



    was Heaven & Hell killed him
and whose we still can't know
                                    thought cut-spread  veil-sewn
                                 shoebox met the law
                                                  of no shoebox models

                       morning children-- teens
                       told me I was wrong  (& maybe I was right

   we locked our Heaven & Hells
 in our metal hallway boxes
                         since his door was locked at bell

we killed him night before
with final swirls of glitter  paint splatters overdone
glued down plastic figures
                           last words to print  reedit
                                                     and print

                    all the construction of Heaven & Hell 
                  overwhelmed the city air
                he had to be taken but heart kept on
                 until he'd made his pot of predawn coffee

  we killed him as he had to know we would
 he wasn't suicidal  (near retirement

   he needed us to make our own
                            was Heaven & Hell
                                         killed him




Elizabeth Kate Switaj (www.elizabethkateswitaj.net) has two books of poetry forthcoming: How to Drink a Floral Moon from Blue Lion Books 

and Magdalene and the Mermaids from Paper Kite Press.  Her chapbook, The Broken Sanctuary: Nature Poems, is currently available from Ypolita Press.  

When not writing, she teaches English at Shengda College of Zhengzhou University in rural China and edits Crossing Rivers Into Twilight  

(www.critjournal.com).