NORTHEAST OHIO SPOTLIGHT

Superior and Decker

Poetry by ​​Dionne Custer Edwards

That man had a wrath, a bright ring gulp.
Wild-tempered debris, spun
 
like clogged water down his throat.
Funneled her sentences as crumbs. Sogged
 
rib and flesh down his well wide cylinder
of rust and blades, awful ache and smell.

She swallowed. Waited for him to pause
long enough to listen to pleading.

Long enough for her to look him in the eye,
spread his fingers around her neck.

Long enough for the furnace to click,
for shuffle and rumbling,

for the neighbor to knock at the door.
Allow her a few minutes to flee. Tend
 
to the crackle of oil in the skillet. Words
they never said. The garlic burned.

Dionne Custer Edwards

Dionne Custer Edwards is a writer and arts educator at The Wexner Center for the Arts. She created Pages, a writing program where she facilitates arts experiences for high school students, works with artists and teachers on arts integration, and co-edits an anthology of student writing and art. She has work in 3Elements Review, Flock, Grist, The Seventh Wave, Crack the Spine, Tahoma Literary Review, and others. She has an M.A. from Antioch University in Creative Writing and Arts Education and a B.A. from Ohio State University in English. Find her online at lifeandwrite.com.