Electric wine on my sleeve, I wobble
on the tiles. Pots of ragweed and bamboo,
a jar of teeth, a bucket of stew, line my kitchen counter.
My lover has left, grown tired of me,
did all but say: you are not the woman I want.
I spin, I wring, I jazz across the floor,
a tycoon of wills. I buzz bright blue—
a fly with two great eyes.
My cottage stands crooked
in the forest, a man with a broken
knee, and its stones blink and blink
and still cannot see
through the darkness of these early
morning hours.
I’ve thumbed
through all my potions and for this,
none will do.
None will summon back up who I imagined myself to be.
She evaporated, a shadow soaked up by the sun.
Each time he sank into me, a ship falling
into the deep blue sea,
my inner parts rose, rearranged, tide sucked in
then spilled out. For a moment I floated in an inner black,
suspended, empty, no magnetic fields, no push and pull,
no awareness of boundaries and oppositions
between myself and all else.
My houseplants rot from too much water,
scent of decomposition warms the room like fur.
Death wish in neither angel nor animal.
I’ll buy an orchid today, that corpse curl,
that thin neck I’ve envied for so long.
I’ll eat the petals, one by one, each swallow
my birth, until I too,
will bloom the deep burgundy,
the absent tumbleweed.
Kassandra Montag
Kassandra Montag holds a master’s degree in English Literature and her award-winning poetry and short fiction has appeared in journals and anthologies, including Midwestern Gothic, Nebraska Poetry, Prairie Schooner,and Mystery Weekly Magazine. After the Floodis her first novel. More of her work can be found at kassandramontag.com.
Artwork: Christian Schloe, Water Maiden
Website: https://www.facebook.com/ChristianSchloeDigitalArt
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