Proverbs 35

You have been told

a harlot is a deep ditch, 

a dangerous pit.

She is a cave of spirits

awaiting judgement,

a tomb under a foundation stone.  

When the priests enter 

the holy of holies,

they cannot hear the wailing souls.

You have been told

avoid the trap of women.

Death is in their blood and breath.

It’s been said god lives in incense 

and the steam of slaughter. 

From the mercy seat, he sees.

But you are lost 

in the tabernacle curtains

and its overlapping veils.

When you hide from him

in a closet of wire and winter coats,

pray she saves you.

Beg her to send you 

the vacuum chord to guide you out. 

Rejoice, she can find you in the dark.

She is the cave of spirits

and the mercy seat. 

She breathes the breath of life.  

Epilogue to a Decade

Our fireplace grate cradles 

a fragile stack of bones 

crackling gently like charred sticks.

Wind pulls hissing smoke

up the wall of stones.

When the house ripped down its center

and April wind came roaring in,

our banister got smashed to splinters,

mail crushed between the spindles—

our stairs already rotted like sin.  

Failing day chokes for its breath, 

and dusk turns to wounded night—

so things end like an escaping balloon 

in the thick black sky, as a final gavel 

in the carnival’s last light.

Catherine Zickgraf

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. Her work has appeared in Pank, Deep Water Literary Journal, and The Grief Diaries. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Kelsay Books.

Find her in the Bluesky. Watch/read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com