Arsenic Lobster poetry journal
Issue Eighteen
Winter 2008
| Home | Current Issue | Contributors | Review | Order | 2008 Pushcart Nominees | Archive | Submission | About Us | Contact Us |
 
Shovels & Sandcastles
    after Phoebe
Emily Jern-Miller

Take the maggots knocking against those silent closets of hair. Every
head is a feast. Even the cliff-tripped, plummet-thumped.

Below the trail, rock skins shatter a satin grave. Split shoe soles
soak salt. Maybe a crunched cell phone beeps a number loose like a
baby tooth.

Her boyfriend maneuvered down the whipped boulders. Kneeled, kleenex
clutching, beside her. And we hear the news and think:

wind slips off the tongue as a grape. Athletic breeze lifts a flimsy
apology. Take dagger. Take poison. Sharp shove over. Something
anger can hold.

In her mother's dream, moths and bees fasten a crown for her ankles.
In her mother's dream, there were never steep ravines, but bored
prairies, wide shoulders, and wings.

About Emily Jern-Miller

| Home | Current Issue | Contributors | Review | Order | 2008 Pushcart Nominees | Archive | Submission | About Us | Contact Us |