//creative//
Fall 2017
Terah's Sonnet
Spencer Szwalbenest
I never found a God so plainly square
As a linoleum tile, but, then again,
It fits along the bench’s edge for when
I wait for it to shape itself from there.
My art teacher in middle school would warn
To move our hands from at the tile’s front:
The woodturner to slip is always wont
And leave a cut I’d never wanted born.
The cutting of a deity is prayer
And nothing, would I frankly say, is art
Except when past the turner’s cut, I start
To pick my scab, my skin left red and bare.
And etched on my left hand a scar now sits,
For God shapes me if I wish to shape It.
As a linoleum tile, but, then again,
It fits along the bench’s edge for when
I wait for it to shape itself from there.
My art teacher in middle school would warn
To move our hands from at the tile’s front:
The woodturner to slip is always wont
And leave a cut I’d never wanted born.
The cutting of a deity is prayer
And nothing, would I frankly say, is art
Except when past the turner’s cut, I start
To pick my scab, my skin left red and bare.
And etched on my left hand a scar now sits,
For God shapes me if I wish to shape It.
//Spencer Szwalbenest is a sophomore in the School of General Studies and List College. He can be reached at sjs2266@columbia.edu.
