Isabel Kestner is a poet and writer who spent half her life in New Jersey and half in Virginia, making her an odd blend of Southern Woman and Jersey Girl.  Her poems have appeared in numerous publications since the age of seventeen.  Her first collection of poetry, Strange Things She Heard, was released in December 2009.  In addition to poetry she also writes for film.

Five Poems (November 20, 2010. Issue 22.)

In the Current

We speak in the language of auctioneers.
Going…fast cars…speed dial…
Drive threw…going…express line…
Instant credit…DSL…going
Induced labor…preschool…premed….
Fast track…early retirement…
Gone.

Until The End

Too often I am fed
only my inadequacies.

My right arm too weak to hold
up the ceiling. And in the left
my still-born son.

My legs that could not run fast
enough to catch my ghost as
she left me.

Daily,
I could not be nourished on these.
My weakness ever starving me.

Yet, constant is my blood pulsing,
never surrendering. Even after defeat.
Even after I am captured.

Always, the sacrifice dies screaming,
kicking violently at the face of God.

Once she is tied to the stake, and
the torch is pressed to the timber
the vow is made stronger. Fire
burns belief hotter.

The damned cannot alter allegiance.
It is too late. Conviction is forever.

This is my strength: In all of my
failure, I have not surrendered.

April, Again

Here's to
finding your letters, and
finding your whisper, then
folding you back into blue pockets.
Do I deserve this gift of your
ghost perched on the window that
I forgot to leave open for you?
If I pull on the thread could I
now try to reel you back in?
What did we do then? Would
you still call me your friend?

In the Shuffle

Under the thumb of an ace
and a thief we trade faces
and call ourselves kings
and queens. You bet you're
a seven. Chances are, just
a two or three. But we all
bend and fold the same.
Corners frayed and backs an
exact design indistinguishable
from all the others.
We get traded, hit and
saved. And not a single
one of us can win
the game alone.

Still Able

You are momentarily kind
and I approach you with my
frozen fingers hoping you will
warm them. In this glitch
you are friend in full,
without the word passed.
You are compass point and
magnetic direction. But we
are not full members of
oblivion yet. Still you
shovel ashes, gray, but
still warm, still remembering
coal, remembering fire. Still
you are the lost soul of water,
still able to warm my hands.