We are blessed to be
In the city of the truly free
In Zurich the sky reflects back to me a Sea
Of cherry eyed faces which know no need
Along the imagined banks of the harbor
Blushing cheeks shine in promenade
Easy listening blares from beneath the Arbor
And a door with no exit shuffles down the parade
Here free healthcare reigns supreme
Nothing can hurt me
Here the smiling face reigns supreme
Nothing can hurt me
Smiling girl, smiling man, Smiling petit-four
Smiling swings
The door, kaleidoscope of brown, no handle, down
Utilitarian need hangs heavy over each
pound of the lip opening
Der weite offene Himmel gibt sein
stetig unverändernen Blick preis
Er grinst breit
You are hungry and cannot eat
You want nothing that we could ever need
Rocking back and forth on the guts
Of some machine
It crushes you between the gaps, the weave
Your frenzied smile sweet with wordless wailing
At the heart of all history
A wave rocks back and forth to me
The sound and the feeling
Lost in the tremulous mass of the dank
Schwabian sea
A sound I understand, momentarily—
I stare. I thirst. I cannot sleep. I grow dirty. I shake off fleas.
Everything but the sound loses meaning to me.
-- Jessie Lifton is a poet living in Chicago. Her work has previously been published in Bizarre Publishing House, Bruiser Magazine, and Lothlorian Poetry Journal. You can find her on X and Instagram at @jessiechrxst.