I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU THROUGH THE CONDUIT OF ME
after Shirley Jackson
After a session with planchette, I require a glass of milk and perhaps a small cake—carrot, or
buttercream.
Instead, I am left to porch, alder-sweat, cottonwood trembling under August thundercloud.
I leave the rake out in the rain, comb dirt like a lover’s hair, shadow streaming through dusty lace
curtain, third-floor widow’s walk, fern wallpaper.
Instead, I forget my ghosts, carve them into fields before the squall, watch them trickle from edge of
hedgerow, the shed behind the house loosening like a tooth—I tongue it until blood coppers the earth,
my insides a ripped tin roof.
In the end, I sought forgiveness from those already dead—too late for the stories I told about my body,
my origin, your myth.
I slip into something soft and green, a new daffodil thrusting into early spring, defiant. Lipstick running
over the edges of my lips, eyeliner slipping down my cheeks, unforgivable. If I pretend I am OK, then I
am at least an entity, solid, roiling with slime.
I left you there, under foil, under dew. Summer rain a catalyst for coming
closer. I want to know more about you through the conduit of me.
Glint Literary Journal 