Susie Sweetland Garay’s most recent poem to appear here was “The Necessity of Rage” (August 2017)

Rib Cage
By Susie Sweetland Garay

You are protectors,
(but protection is an illusion,
so where does that
leave us?)

You look like a cage
but your bars
act instead as cracks
so we can live in both
shadow and light.

They give us
a place to hide

but keep the light close
so we don’t have to travel far
when we begin to crave her again.

You provide a home
for the heart,

putting into words
what comes up from the belly.