This selection, chosen by guest editor john compton, is from Panacea by Alison Strub (Milk and Cake Press 2023).
Address to Hippocrates
On the Sacred Disease,
there are now over forty types.
Could I save you more easily
if by demon than by heredity.
I walked outside and the sun
was no longer the sun,
and the earth was no longer earth,
and the water was no longer the water
and the air was no longer air
and the fire was no longer fire.
Could I be more
secure in prayers
and a basin of holy water
than in treatment.
The spring was blood,
the summer was yellow
the autumn was black.
I am trying to achieve balance,
even when the gait shifts
and the hands and arms move,
as if in a dance.
Alison Strub is a hybrid poet and visual artist who received her M.F.A. at George Mason University. Her poems have appeared in Gigantic Sequins, Salt Hill, The Seattle Review, Word For/ Word and other fine publications. Her chapbook, Lillian, Fred, was published by BOAAT Press in 2016. Her book, Panacea, was published in 2023 by Milk & Cake Press and her next book, Dust Rites, is forthcoming from Milk & Cake Press in 2026. She can be reached by telegrams and texts.
