THE LEVY for Zhu Yufu * by Stefanie Bennett

Scissors know our healing
Does not come from books:

Does as
          The wind does.
Does arch
          As the hand raised over-long.
Does concentrate
          On every pose.
Does cheat
          For the sake of comfort.
Does define
          Both prong and tail.
Does the
          Daylights from the living.
Does assign
          A dearth stance
Of which we are too familiar, cut
          From the background

What scrap is to the stockpiling.

(*Poet-activist who placed a poem online in China
calling for the rights of ‘free expression’ in April
2011 jailed after charge of ‘Subversion’. Amnesty
International & PEN say there is “no release date”.)

Stefanie Bennett has published several books of poetry, a novel & a libretto… tutored at The Institute of Modern Languages & worked with Arts Action for Peace. Of mixed ancestry [Irish/Italian/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Queensland, Australia. Her latest poetry title with Walleah Press is “The Vanishing”.