poetry – Page 39 – FEMININE COLLECTIVE

Mother

January 3, 2019January 6, 2019 M. Anne Sweet

I am what she once was She empties her hand in mine grips the buzzing bee hip and knee replaced the bone cup that birthed us broken this bone cradle fails her eighty years spent in its hammock bruises surface yellow and brown A rat terrier snaps at my leg Read more

The Cacti of Your Memories

January 3, 2019January 19, 2019 F.K. Jadoon

I walk amid paths strewn with cacti of your memories. Which stay still, strong, silent. But there. In my path. So that if i want to go forward, I have to go through them. But when I try do that, I get pierced by their sharp pointy thorns. It is Read more

Downfall

January 3, 2019January 3, 2019 Tianna G. Hansen

begin to constantly wear your disguise crown of thorns dipped in red, dangling above your head. no trace of purity or sacrifice. your name will only be shunned woven together with life’s thread but happier — apart — and every time you try to achieve the past slips through fingers Read more

All At Once

December 23, 2018December 23, 2018 Victoria Addesso

It was winter. The boy…young man…child… (he was all at once) sat on the frozen ground in the middle of the football field looking up at the clear night sky. Black-blue background dotted with the white pinprick specks of stars. The moon was gibbous, waxing. The boy lifted his right Read more

DRIFTWOOD AND BONE

December 21, 2018January 19, 2019 Alexandra Meehan

bursts of summer and yellow-eyed butterflies and a chiseled sculpture, worn down, flat like a stiff tuxedo cuff, risen and engraved in the hearth of hard dirt wetted by rain with wood stumps like starfish be dazzling grey roses, dried and wrapped in baby thorn coats winding round drooping oak Read more

Chimera

December 21, 2018December 21, 2018 Jacquie Prebich

tick tock tock tick awake awake always awake writing writing no sun no shine no exit chimera black blacker blackest darkness cloaks the clock ticks tick tock tock tick awake awake always awake writing writing penance a sentence there is no sleep for dreamers Photo Read more

Alcoholic Betty

December 19, 2018December 20, 2018 Elisabeth Horan

Alcoholic secretary smokes a pack a day. Hides in her car at lunch puffing shame fags alone – Hangover Betty – she is a sorry case. Too bad to deserve a pregnancy – God recognizes this type – this type with veined and reddened face. Pathetic fat Betty; at thirty Read more

Kiss Them For Me

December 19, 2018December 19, 2018 Lydia A. Cyrus

My body is a temple, which I will not desecrate. The phrase “virgin blood” is misleading. It means blood that has not previously been used in a sacrifice, not the blood of a virgin. Even that explanation is misleading because isn’t sex a sacrifice? Do you not open up yourself Read more