Kelli Simpson

THE CURSED AND CAPTURED HIGHWAYMAN

Give me the blindfold and the cigarette.
Bayonet my rib cage moon.
I'll open easy as a dark night
for you.

I was just another bastard on the highway
till I robbed that gypsy show,
and a bone in my throat turned brittle
and broke my silence.

Now I can't sleep for my own speaking
or keep any company for the truth
that comes spilling out—
in whispers or shouts—
oh, the violence words can do!

So give me the blindfold and the cigarette.
Bayonet my rib cage moon.
I'll open easy as a dark night
for you.

You can't help but hear my confession
unless you slice my tongue plumb through.
Just give me the blindfold and the cigarette
and shoot.


Gerald So reads "The Cursed and Captured Highwayman":



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Kelli confesses: "What could be a more terrible punishment for a criminal (or anyone, for that matter) than to be cursed with the inability to stop talking and telling the truth? The idea lent itself so naturally to narrative and rhyme (my two great loves) that I just couldn't let it go. 'The Cursed and Captured Highwayman' is the result."


KELLI SIMPSON makes her home in Norman, Oklahoma. Her work has appeared in MockingHeart Review, Ygdrasil: A Journal of the Poetic Arts, Firefly Magazine, and the anthology Oklahoma Poems and Their Poets.