she wants to stop me
I beg her but she's
adamant she's
the stone of flesh at
my lips, the quarry
where crushing fingers
to my teeth become
dropping pebbles
like rainstorms, hail to
beat back the sounds from
my now-engravelled
mouth
if you were shut
up, or slapped silly
buried alive, would
you ever think to
take your time in soft
confessions
I shout
the minute I walk
free from the silo
free from the stuffed sharp
splash of avalanche
the earth carries me
to air to breath O
once the stopping up
stops
I speak the words
without art or care
like a mother in
transition, shameless
unsure of time, how
much/little & who
will hear me before
the witch insists she
stop the blood, make
me quiet-sleep for
another hundred
years, the prick---
Emma Goldman-Sherman is a playwright and a poet. Her poems have been published in Oberon, American Athenaeum, The Nasty Women Poetry Anthology and others. Her plays have been produced on 4 continents. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa where she received the Richard Maibaum Award for plays addressing social justice, the Norman Felton Award, and the Jane Chambers Award for Perfect Women. She has received residencies at Millay, Ragdale and twice at WordBRIDGE where she also worked as a dramaturg. She was a dramaturg for GPTC and has taught for AJT. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, LPTW, ICWP and was in the Playwrights Lab at WPTheatre. She runs WriteNow Workshop for new play development and www.BraveSpace.online to support female-identified and gnc writers, especially survivors. She quarantines in upstate NYC by a hidden forest on a salt marsh.
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