4 Poems by Janice L. Freytag

The Way It Begins Before you can write, you’ll need a pen. There is nothing but you in a bare room, so you sacrifice a finger from your left hand, let the bone bleach, then sharpen it on your eye teeth. Before you can write, you’ll need ink. You sacrifice another finger, drain the blood, then sweeten it with spittle. Then you’ll need a scroll. You cut off your arm at the elbow, stretch the skin taut on a rack of bones, secure it with rubber-band muscles. You’ll write for a while, maybe five days or so. When your pen…

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