A Class In Lower Keys Poem by Ella Veyes

In a womb of ashes,
Is a stillborn Phoenix.
And when the birds flew south,
They flew straight out of your mouth.
Would've took our anthem if we had one.

Piles of dishes; dirty;
Of a tea-stained city.
So a sexless census
Reveals pain in past-tenses.
Rags to lingerie; God anon and gone.

You envy the trenches;
Their poetic mentions.
Daughter dysphoria,
There's no cure for your war here.
What's a dream dear, when it's in neon noir.

Since silence is cheaper,
We hunt ourselves up here.
Domesticated fate;
We're humane but not humate.
Too many cliches, not a single scar.

The family tree fires.
Pennies for the pious.
Save for suicide,
There's no purgatory pride.
We alliterate because we can't rhyme.

Since there's nought to invest
In words weird; dali-esque,
Talk to them through TV,
Give them newspapers for free,
And God save the queer, should you have the time.

Let us bask in our baths,
Lukewarm and ever-last.
Let us catch carpet burn,
‘Til loneliness takes its turn.
‘Cause in second-hand lives,
Someone else wore these cries;
So let some birds return,
With an old song
for us
to learn.