Image: Unsplash, downloaded (https://unsplash.com/photos/d_n9-73TM70) 09.09.2023.
What to Do
I drag you back, arms
flailing,
from the hole
in the ice.
Sputtering and frayed,
you bristle
like a bedeviled cat,
as if the water
down there were better
than the air
you shy from.
Was I wrong
to think
like Tsvetaeva
you didn’t wish to be dead,
just not to suffer?
When her feet
left the chair,
she had no one
to cut her down.
About the Author: Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Heiress, Zorba’s Daughter (May Swenson Poetry Award), Moon and Mercury, and three chapbooks. Still Life with Timex won the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize. A native of Chicago, she currently lives in Alexandria, VA, USA.
