God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change for I cannot change
the kinks and coils of my hair,
the skin that criminalizes me,
the body reduced to what it can do and who for;
As my age gains on me, my mother stops short
of hers, buying toys yearly for my grown daughter —
“Daddy always loved the lake,” remarked Jelisa Lu. “He’d swim in the buff every morning at dawn. I’d hear him bellow, ONE-TWO-SIX!!! Then a big fat splash.”
He thought she was the Queen of Swords. She didn’t see herself like that, more like the Queen of Cups perhaps.
“Queen of Swords”, “Claws”, “In Her Voice”, “Hunger”, and “Sometimes a Bird Outside” Read More »
Sshhhck.
She has no idea where she is. Surrounded by blackness, like floating in a void.
There’s a rope between me and the edge of the dock,
there to keep people from falling or jumping in.
Some marsh plants have hollow stems, could be used as straws. The villagers would have known this, he says, could have taken a few on the march to the marshes, or better yet, pulled the pith from a young twig to make it hollow.
The Pripyat Marshes Read More »
A bandaid on the road to stop the spread,
dogs process through their noses: goose turds, a seagull feather,
a flock of cancer cells flaps past.
