SHANA ROSS

When I decided to make myself a new woman

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2024: VOL. 39.

I could not / bring myself / to rob graves 
I quietly gave up / on my own / extremities
starved / for attention / numb, then life-
less & yes / & last / the heart 
was easy / to beat / into submission
weighed down / & pickled / by the scrolling
news, the salt / from looking / back as I 
fled, the acid / of rage & my arms / immovable.
I did not thump / my chest / I did not beg
my heart to open / I did not take / my eyes & look
away.  I asked / my assistant / to lay me down
on a cold slab / in a tower / in a storm
waiting / for lightning / ex machina
to animate / this corpse / waiting
still / still as prayer / whispered
without stirring / the air / still, still
as a rabbit / hides. All / electricity
is just small / lonely bits / ripped 
from orbit / choosing to flow / together
fast & faster. / I think we / could find 
enough juice / to restart / a heart
if we started / aiming / our rage.

Shana Ross is a recent transplant to Edmonton, Alberta and Treaty Six Territory. Qui transtulit sustinet. Her work has recently appeared in Cutbank Literary Journal, Ilanot Review, Gigantic Sequins, Identity Theory, Meetinghouse Magazine, and more. She is the winner of the 2022 Anne C. Barnhill prize and the 2021 Bacopa Literary Review Poetry competition. She’s been feeding the magpies in her backyard for about a year, but friendship apparently takes more time, more peanuts.