Central self-aggrandizement:
my pillar of salt
wrought in my blood.
Knowing myself alone
and despising any extra weight.
But still I am open and prone
to your restrained
and restraining,
eyes.
They're sweet bait
and I bite at them
every
fucking
time.
Erika Ostergaard teaches English as a second (and usually third) language to K-12 students in rural Moldova (eastern Europe). Her poetry is published in small papers and magazines in West Virginia where she graduated from Shepherd University with an English Literature degree.
a poem by erika ostergaard