Casey Elizabeth Newbegin: Two Poems

Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Unsplash

[Image Description: Wilted pink roses, with a touch of brown on the edges, lay flat on a marble background with water stains]

Verdict

for Bill Cosby

New magnolias with their riotous aroma

herald this seasonal revolution.

Their authentic freshness at odds

with your false decrepitude.

Sometimes there is justice. The Golden

State killer is not gone in the dark

and you will die cursing at closed doors.

Petals carpet the churchyard.

Your thick sweaters are no protection

against this merciless spring.

Waiting Song

The sea flows the way I don’t,

though I am meant to mirror

its tides, their swell and ebb,

as the moon clothes and unclothes

herself monthly. I am late

a week or more,

chewing my cuticles until they bleed,

wearing salt-mist in my hair.

The last boy was a drummer

with callouses and blood blisters

on his fingers. (Should I call them men

now that they pose this threat to me?)

He was playful but not gentle –

so often they touch me like

the thing they love best: paint

on a palette, a vibrating string,

computer keys, scalpel.

I attend my pulse and shovel

sand over my feet;

the mound grows and grains

trickle back to the beach.

The waves roll a sea shanty

I learned as a child:

A drop of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm

A night with the girls

wouldn’t do us any harm.

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Casey Elizabeth Newbegin lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY, where she works in art restoration. She is the author of the chapbook Northern California Lightning Series and her work has previously appeared in Off the Coast, Windfall, Plainsongs, and The Sandy River Review.