Lady Liberty Sings the Blues

A new cento by Billie Holiday/Emma

Lazarus/Sylvia Plath/Kelsey Bryan-Zwick

When I shun my light, the earth forgets

I ignite and everything spills out again

(I think therefore, I’ve known regrets.)

I dreamt for tempest-tost a place to rest

Sang for the homeless, the tired, the poor

When I shun my light, the earth forgets.

Golden door tarnished, my lips go silent

And a calculated meanness conquers all

(I think therefore, I’ve known regrets.)

Body, rusted beacon, book-ash dishonest

Lost moon, hollow giant, childless mother

When I shun my light, the earth forgets.

Copper eyes search for home, for our nest

But I’ve gone blind, in exile from myself

(I think therefore, I’ve known regrets.)

I should have loved you without request

Yet as I do: love is love’s consequence.

When I shun my light, the earth forgets

(I think therefore, I’ve known regrets.)

* * * * *

Kelsey Bryan-Zwick is a Spanish/English speaking SoCal poet and artist with a B.A. from UC Santa Cruz in Literature/Creative Writing. She is the author of three chapbooks, the most recent being Watermarked (Sadie Girl Press) a hand bound edition which intermixes both her poetry and art. Disabled with scoliosis from a young age her poems often focus on trauma, giving heart to the antiseptic language of hospital intake forms. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Kelsey’s poetry appears in Incandescent Mind, petrichor, Like a Girl, Lummox, Storm Cycle 2015, Short Poems Ain’t Got Nobody to Love, Cadence Collective, Eunoia Review, and Redshift 2. Find her at kelseybryanzwick.wixsite.com/poetry