Red Light
A View of the Living
Like any good daughter,
I leave to peel the earthworms
off my mother’s neck
in the company of moss and arbor.
She says
it is the rain that keeps them in slickness,
tiger striping her esophagus.
Like any good daughter,
I leave to peel the earthworms
off my mother’s neck
in the company of moss and arbor.
She says
it is the rain that keeps them in slickness,
tiger striping her esophagus.
& they love her,
they do. They offer gas money,
and put up a good fight. When they’re done,
they shut out the light..
There is no salvation
in their dancing–
The worms move like oil,
her body a glass jar curved for their hardening.
She is their instrument, a sacred hall. They never
stop coming and I envy it.
The night rests in the machine
of her tragedy, filling with mud
And strange bodies.
I go home with a knife and an empty tin bucket.
I tell the others asking
I couldn’t find her
& they love her,
they do. They offer gas money,
and put up a good fight. When they’re done,
they shut out the light..
There is no salvation
in their dancing–
The worms move like oil,
her body a glass jar curved for their hardening.
She is their instrument, a sacred hall. They never
stop coming and I envy it.
The night rests in the machine
of her tragedy, filling with mud
And strange bodies.
I go home with a knife and an empty tin bucket.
I tell the others asking
I couldn’t find her
These days,
A musket rots in the young boy’s closet.
On occasion, his father thinks about it
In relation to his own hand.
The boy is fed
The ripest pear
And the truest maroon seeps
Through the corridor to stain his robes.
He does not think about the musket.
He thinks of the ants
on his nightstand. He is sorry
They don’t have muskets for themselves.
They deserve them.
Their knotted bodies against
an impenetrable world–
Either dying or on the verge of it.
Look how the child has grown, now.
How he does his dance
And sings his throaty sorrows
In the evenings meant for waiting.
His father takes the gun.
The boy asks
for a story.
The ants keep up their marching.
Finola McDonald is a New York-based poet and writer. She is a recent graduate of SUNY Purchase’s Lily Lieb Port creative writing program, a voracious coffee lover, and does best when placed in direct sunlight. More of her work can be found in Breadcrumbs Mag, Gutter Mag, Italics Mine, and Flock Lit.
