Susan Milchman

GIRL VS. GHOST

dangle me into the belly

of your beast

dare me to be the girl

who doesn’t know her mother

you can skin my pearl

you can split my spine

just promise to sew me up

with a fresh axis

one that spins

to the tired bellow

of territory undiscovered

praise the life i live

pity the life i learn from

watch them braid

into a hungry sin

see how far i’ll go

to show you bravery

see how far i’ll go

to show you fear

i’ll move my hips

until i feel the world

go limp beneath me

i’ll chop down every tree

just to hear the sap sing

Susan Milchman’s poetry has appeared in Glass, A Journal of Poetry, bramble & thorn (an anthology from Porkbelly Press), Rogue Agent, Rust+Moth, Rufous City Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Minneapolis by way of Washington, D.C. and has a degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland. Find her on Instagram @susan.milchman.