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"Schrei" by Jasmin Bauer
Final Purification
​
In solitude a swallowing sound
can be as loud as a symphony 
of sirens echoing against
all that has been abandoned.
After disrobing, she wraps 
her ashy hair around her neck
like a festive scarf, a loose 
noose too nervous to become 
a kindling rope, admires her 
nipples raising to the draftiness
of December. She wants 
past lovers to call upon her 
in this moment. For each 
to stand in line as if she’s made
of bread and wine, to kiss a cheek, 
her hand, peck her dried lips. 
For just one to regret not stroking 
her stocky legs and pale breasts 
one last time. Place my heart
on a pyre and push this burning
part of me out to sea. 

*

She makes a fairly good ghost,
hovering above headboards
at night so that no one ever 
feels like she’s gone. Is that you? 
they whisper and she rattles 
the bed slats, blows cool air 
into their ear. Sometimes
she goes down on them,
moving from house to house
wondering who misses 
her tindered touch the most.
Mostly, she likes to watch
one after another in fits 
of mourning as bodies
convulse involuntarily,
when they, too, realize they
can no longer bear being alone.  




Kelly Andrews

Kelly Andrews' poems have appeared or are forthcoming in PANK, Apeiron Review, Weave Magazine, Pear Noir, and others. Her chapbook "Mule Skinner" is available from Dancing Girl Press (2014). She coedits the online journal Pretty Owl Poetry and has a hand in creating B.E. Quarterly, a sometimes-quarterly zine.

Jasmin Bauer is a German artist. She works with acrylic and her verity is a mixture of pop-art and photorealistic objects. Her art has been exhibited in several castles and newspapers in Germany. Besides being an artist, she loves good wine and traveling all over the world. www.trendculture.jimdo.com 
​
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