Arsenic Lobster
poetry journal |
Issue Eighteen Winter 2008 |
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 |