Scatter, Feed: Poems by Ellen McGrath Smith. Number 2.10 in the Seven Kitchens Press Editor’s Series.

Cover art: “Azul” by Tony Fitzpatrick.

Release date: October 10, 2014 [125 copies]
26 pages
$9.00

Ellen McGrath Smith teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and in the Carlow University Madwomen in the Attic program. Her work has been recognized with an AROHO Orlando Prize, and Academy of American Poets award, a Rainmaker Award from Zone 3 magazine, and a 2007 Individual Artist grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Child’s Pose

Balasana

A way of hitting back. One wave
is the dreaded belt, sailing backward,
jerking forward, striking skin.
Large tides in which a small soul
swims. The child posed as a mouse
stunned into temporary death
until the predator forgets.

The child posed as a house of cold,
ungiving rafters. All alone, the child
is architect of hunger; face in shadow,
knees, feet, forehead touch the floor.
A small soul’s scattered breath
and heartbeat echo, sounding out
the home inside the house.
A way of getting back–

the heels exposed, the unprotected soles–
bulbs of daffodils in snow.

• Purchase Scatter, Feed here or send an e-mail query to sevenkitchenspress at gmail dot com.
• Purchase Ellen’s new book, Nobody’s Jackknife, by clicking here.
• Check out Ellen’s website here.