BURNING HOUSE PRESS

our feet have bottomed 

out in the earth-slit.

let it be known 

buck was once the name 

of a dog, but not a dog 

of mine. my toddler 

arms suffered hives 

from his lick, burned 

redhot from within

1. i feared his cleaning 

himself, a nautilus 

my own body 

could not shape. in a kitchen 

like any other, the smoke 

left a beeswarm. before

fire, i figured allergies, my skin 

blistering honeyblood. a maggot

lived in buck 

for nine days before

anyone noticed. when plucked, 

it was golf-sized, full of 

dog. mother fed me 

a milkbone for a moment of 

peace, bleached the 

sink of its bloodsplatter until

our dishes were 

poison. the sun rises &

there is less  

& less of us. we hold

last vigils by the jesus-

shrine, ask for him to 

be with us & in us – a 

maggot. how afraid

they must be, jesus

and the dog, having never 

seen hell before. we are 

constantly feeding; the holes

are already 

in all of us. 

Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing). Her collection, Lizzie, Speak, won White Stag Publishing’s 2018 poetry contest, and her newest collection, FOREVERHAUS, is forthcoming from White Stag in 2020. She is a senior editor for Luna Luna Magazine. You can find her work featured or forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins, Electric Literature, Nat. Brut, Black Warrior Review, Fairy Tale Review, Bone Bouquet Journal, and more. For further information, please follow @kaileytedesco.