Heiress to a Small Ruin | Sarah J. Sloat

Sarah J. Sloat lives in Germany, where she works in news. Her poems and prose have appeared in The Offing, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, among other journals and anthologies. Her chapbooks “Inksuite” and “Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair” are also available from Dancing Girl Press.    Self-Portrait with Lava LampHere stands a gadget laughing my laugh,a trick that mimics my breathand soothes my inner spastic.This flux puts its thumb to my pulse, the sludge that is my blood.Here’s an idea like a cud being chewed, an intention that flounders with nothing to nail it to.This gadget unpacks my lack of direction. For all its fluorescence, ambition caves in with a dolloping boom.Here stands a gadget breathing my breath.Throb of a world unstoppered that all day betrays how I’ve been crawling the halls, bulging with purpose and falling apart.