At night, I leave all the lights on in my head.
This way, I know the dead can find me.
Sometimes they toss me their worldly trinkets:
the moon, wobbly as a child’s loose tooth,
a tuning fork, a spear of lightning for my song.
Like a magpie, I collect them.
I line my own death-nest
with the baubles of the dead.
Nothing, not even death, can harm me.
Elizabeth Knapp is the author of The Spite House, winner of the 2010 De Novo Poetry Prize. The recipient of awards from Literal Latté and Iron Horse Literary Review, she has work forthcoming in B O D Y, River Styx, and Sonora Review, among others. She teaches at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.
