Sara Burge
Poetry
Sara Burge is the author of Apocalypse Ranch (C&R Press), and her poetry has been published in or is forthcoming from CALYX Journal, Willow Springs, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Louisville Review, Prairie Schooner, River Styx, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Missouri State University, where she serves as the Poetry Editor of Moon City Review.
I Look Good in Debt
I didn't pay the bills again.
The calls are crowding,
collecting again.
Didn’t translate the car's sounds.
Didn't smell the roof cracking.
Didn't hear the basement's black water creep in,
so my skin buds mildew. My clothes green
and stink. Fear threatens,
debt backhands
but I ignore their bad manners,
ignore till paralysis
seizes fingers, jawbone, till my legs
halt their kicking,
my soft parts pinken
till I lie down and wonder
which tunnel leads out.
If there's wheat in the fields.
If dollars might breed
if I lay them together
and turn on some Prince.
If a haircut could help me.
If a workout would save me.
If wonder itself
costs an arm and a leg.
“ This poem came from one of numerous moments in my life in which everything went tits up at once, and I was caught between paralysis and magical thinking. Capitalism is absurd. Sometimes you need to laugh about your situation in order to endure it. ”
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