Disarming of Shadow, Arming of Light

Rachel Eliza Griffiths

I wish I were like Johnny Cash

& thought my heart was mine.
Ive worn a black suit
my entire life. It suits the war
my eyes ignite.
My sins sit on my lap,
bald, blind, desperate
for the mercy of lost roads,
glottal white lines.
Only smoke will take me
far to nowhere
a woman living
between
her own burning road
& a charmed God
the unmarked sky
where a plague of blackbirds
fell across my back
like an unlit cross.