These three poems by Sarah Scarberry concern themselves with liberation – the freedom of fresh air, long drags of sunlight, ember and ash…
by: Sarah Scarberry
Burst Like a Blackberry
The longer the light stretches the
farther I float on a reckless wave
I crave bright bursts of spontaneity
I am begging for blackberries to pop
their plump juice all over my tongue
I hunger for teeth scraping my neck and a full
skirt blown up real quick over my thighs
I open my mouth wanting air on my
legs new doe knees wobbling above heels
worn uneven from running I am being
chased by birdsong I hope you’ll hold
me down I aim to bite your bottom
lip I’d fuck for the light to slap my bare
full chest I’d eat you like a slut storm
picnic I wish you’d swallow me whole
So You Might Heal on the Other Side of Holy
I prescribe the fresh air out the door
of a revival service gone too long. The sun
seems brighter on the other side of holy. Breathe
in, be blinded a minute. I recommend the
sounds of children laughing and crying respectively
in the nursery just outside the sanctuary. Try the
faucet-turned-coldest water to wash your hands in
the bathroom. As you walk face first out the aisle, the
sound of tongues will grow softer and softer, but don’t
listen closely. People will tell you speaking in tongues
is gibberish but you’ll hear its cadence, those triplets of uh
and huh and shuh sounds. Hear them, but don’t listen. What
I will say is your prognosis is brighter if you spend more time
in the relief, the delicious release from revoking your consent to
an experience you know will someday sour into regret.
Salt Walks Backwards Towards Sodom
I took pillar for grain.
Never knew I’d be left
standing taller than before
if I turned.Took ring-round-rosie turns
around the present-making past.
In a moment I turn monument.
Would he still count me wrong
if I walked backwards instead
through the burning streets?
Would he root me to the ashy ground
if I viewed first the outer periphery moving
towards the yet untouched center of the city?
(He never said why not to look
but that god
never explained much at all.
You sure could haggle
with that old god though.
He’d let anyone shake him down
For a life or two or forty.
Even actual Satan.) I want to turn
my quibble-wish into an unreeling
the final scene of the before-person
who went from pillar
to salt speck.
To practice my backwards walk
up the stairs to the dirty apartment
with the marlin hanging on the kitchen wall.
Scenes suction suck in around me.
My head reverse hitting the pillow.
Shit cum pulled from the rag.
Don’t look don’t look
at that once-girl-face unmash itself.
Build her, don’t turn her into a memorial.
Sarah Scarberry grew up in Appalachian Ohio, and their work is deeply rooted in Appalachian mythos, cadence and values. They currently reside in Colorado with their partner and rescue pup. They’ve worked in public libraries for a decade, dedicating their life to intellectual curiosity and the love of a good story.
