Student spotlight: a poem by Elizabeth Moser
'Pretty, Pretty Things' explores the obsessive side of love
Throughout August, BU Today will publish pieces of student scholarship and creative work. Elizabeth Moser (CAS ’09) is an English major from Pennsylvania. Her poem originally appeared in the first issue of Burn Magazine, which can be found throughout the campus. The editors can be contacted at burnmagazine@gmail.com.
Pretty, Pretty Things
by Elizabeth Moser
There are times
When I want
to fish out your eyeballs
and use them as earrings.
Hang them like bells or
christmas balls
baubles- around my neck,
the polished stones of your teeth
shining like precious,
oh, precious things.
I could,
So easily,
weave a net of your hair
and tie the rude ropes
across your vast expressionless
plane of face
dice and cross again,
those lips I’d never touch.
Your fingernails, my guitar picks,
cartilage, the firm ridge of your nose-
paper weight or straightedge
knuckles serve as game-dice
poker chips, bingo dot, Jenga block-
Eat You Up
Whole or Not
Raw or Soft
Brewing, broiling toe stew
hip glue
waist-drawn carriage
of a silent crotch armada.
I’m insulted by your elbows
so, to door-stops they go.
Polished bones and alabaster complexion
are my tools,
the trade is, I’d say
the Defense we choose.
Bone-bleached barricades
Our mind, traitor, in prison.
Our heart jailed behind a
steel-rimmed ribcage
What Is Out Must Stay In
And Youth,
knocking on my door, my sin.
“Those lips
it is those lips I miss
the sweet hibiscus-jasmine mix
of summer.
“Watch me watch lips
My silent reminder
behind the criss-cross strands
of hair
braids I bind tight
keeps you, the longing out
and me in.