excerpts from murmur in the inventory

by erica lewis, with artwork by mark stephen finein.

Out of Print

Excerpt:

---------------------------------if you repeat the names they disappear

between water and a line of type

a lump in my throat

blows into the tubes located at your shoulders

the hole in your lip is bleeding

you don’t know what to think so i’ll tell you

both are true

there are no neutral storms

memory or loss bores holes into you

here’s what happened here’s what some people say what happened

i can’t separate the two

no distinction between fiction and fact no distinction

it’s not your fault

you can’t see the sutures

so i cross reference the living with someone else’s skin

scene from the door scene from the window scene from the inside

my fingers cast a shadow down the center

supposing we could separate the two

shards on your face account for all those references

in someone else’s words

the pieces spread thin from intention
oh yes

you should definitely use both hands for that speech