my fire-breathing mother says she believes in love—
she preaches starvation, picks the latest
drive-thru-visit hoard from her teeth
with my toothpick legs Continue reading “An elf turns inside out for the dragon by Kate Garrett”
When you converted to vampirism
you took me with you like a schoolgirl crush
and renamed me in her image. You carried your
halo well—a wisp of cloudlight through the pub
window when you told me I belong in the chapel
of bones, that making a pilgrimage to the town
built on death would suit my medieval fixations.
But with ink held under our tongues like cyanide
– Camus, Pessoa – we hadn’t grown up. Your voice
was a needle skip around a pistol grip, while I cider-
drenched wraiths only I could see. We based ourselves
on bloodstains, never let on we’d sunbleached them to dust;
we never let on these winding sheets were lifted
from a well-mannered airing cupboard, the emperor’s
new shrouds – hiding inside them with hearts that still beat.
