Erin Lynn Marsh
Benefit Concert for an Overdose
—Nomad World Pub, Minneapolis
I think I was my brother tonight;
I recognized his specific misery onstage—screaming
into the dense, muscled body
of the audience. Absorption
was not a choice—the shock of their loss
pulsing the bottoms of my feet. When
I ask my beloved to massage my soles,
draw out the toxins of disbelief and anger,
he refuses—tells me it is dangerous
to handle such built up grief. It is best
to take off my socks, soak my feet
in a plastic tub of ice water, shave
my frozen heels, boil down the deafening shards.
Erin Lynn Marsh is the author of the poetry collection Disability Isn’t Sexy (Jules’ Poetry Playhouse Publications, 2019). Her poems have appeared in Post Road Magazine, Sugar House Review, Paper Darts, Emrys Journal, and the anthology Hers: Poets Speak (while we still can), Vol. 2 (Beatlick Press and Jules’ Poetry Playhouse Publications, 2017), edited by Jules Nyquist. She lives and works in Bemidji, MN.
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