Elisabeth Lewis Corley – First Person Plural

First Person Plural

 

A woman falling—the rest goes by too fast.

The rest go by the fallen, on the pavement.

We breathe a little faster. We try not to see

the rise and fall. Or we recreate

the cavity as it emptied and filled.

We must not pause, it might be still.

 

The woman, puzzled, looks up. That’s the way—

legs like glass, bones twirled fine as her impossible

pumps. The heart thuds in its brittle cage. Stage

is set for salvation, the savior

misses the cue. Take it back. She is wearing

yellow, the same improbable shade

 

as her hair. She is wearing thin. She should

have stayed in Cleveland. She should have stayed young.

Tight as we lace us we all come unstrung.

A flat belly is no talisman. No one

is thinner than the woman in yellow

and she’s flat out. If everyone dies

 

where’s the story? She rises. She will not die

because I say so. Hands on all sides

and she bats them away, she wants no

accoucheur, she cannot bear. You’re too late,

she screams at the crowd, I am a person.

 

Back off now. Give the little lady some air.

  

Elisabeth Lewis Corley’s poems have appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Hyperion, Carolina Quarterly, Feminist Studies, BigCityLit and other publications. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and a B.A. with Highest-Honors-in-Poetry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel where she sometimes teaches screenwriting. Her short film, About Time, directed by Joseph Megel and produced by Harland’s Creek Productions. is currently making the festival rounds.