by Claire S. Lee
The vines yawn
inside the one-room love shack.
A furnace spitting warmth is ignored
for a languid dance, the girl-woman
palming her enlarged girth, head
turned to hide the taste of
copper searing on her palate.
Man and woman shrouded with dust,
their only weakness: Man and woman only
in physique, unable to sacrifice
their elixir of youth. Somewhere, his
guitar strings sing with tremolo, beg
for the musician-man’s pluck. Somewhere,
a dying patient calls for her spindly
arms, like an unborn child leans toward
her mother’s voice. A flurry
of breaths devising how best
my heart could be stopped. How I wish
my heart beat softer. A finger
pinching the hem of my lifeline, then
her whisper into the evening
void: Hit me here, and it’ll be an
accidental death.
Claire S. Lee is a student from Southern California. Her writing has been recognized by Tinderbox Poetry Journal and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and can be found or is forthcoming in Alexandria Quarterly, Rising Phoenix Review, Blue Marble Review, Amaryllis, and *82 Review, among others. She works as the managing editor for COUNTERCLOCK and as an editorial intern for The Blueshift Journal.
A-Minor 