Kelly DuMar
Love and Exorcism
a new day a new word to hide this sadness seen what my life keeps turning into without the fireworks and the evenings and your smiles sent forth from eden? you used to say Sunlight Joy Mine i need you like i will fade out i said be this song on the radio i have loved you like our bodies commanded where’s the wrong your exorcist picked on wrong showed you how a songbird can be pricked open in the palms of love so you said you were leaving & i begged for Mercy so you laced my hair with my mother’s rosary & i held on the way my mother taught me if a boy breaks you / if the wind curses you / nobody said anything of a girl because to cancel a thing’s existence begin by refusing it a place in language
you wanted me to be subtle in saying i choked in your mouth so i became a poet in the first poem you haven’t left christmas hasn’t stopped being christmas we haven’t stopped babysitting sunset on your pavement
in a different poem i returned washed out wounded Achilles to my mother i did not mention your name i said a neighbour’s dog returned with legs broken i said it broke me my mother said Prayers
Onyinyechi Okorie is a Nigerian poet, editor and freelancer. She studies English and Literature at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and tweets @onyii_amor.
Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s author of three poetry chapbooks, girl in tree bark (Nixes Mate, 2019), Tree of the Apple, (Two of Cups Press), and All These Cures, (Lit House Press). Her poems, prose and photos are published in many literary journals including Bellevue Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Crab Fat, Storm Cellar, Corium & Tiferet, and frequently in Feral. Kelly serves on the Board of the International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG), and produces the Bi-Monthly Open Mic Writer Series attended by women worldwide. She blogs her daily nature photos & creative writing at kellydumar.com/blog.