kingsoftrain

Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art. She resides in Graham, NC with her cats, Charlie Chaplin and Janis Joplin.

.

you find your youngest daughter

now your only daughter
swinging her sister’s rosary
back and forth back and forth
upending jesus like a carnival ride
the ones that made you sick
made you watch from behind little metal gates
as your children and everyone’s children raised their hands and screamed.
you snatch the crucifix mid-swing,
beads popping from between your youngest daughter’s fingers
your only daughter’s fingers
clutch it to your mouth, lips against the centerpiece of mary
breathing in and out in and out
eyes closed, squeezing so the whole scene is a negative in red and orange
as you lower your hand, opening it in time with your eyes
and find the imprint of christ…

Tiffany Elliott was born and raised in sunny Southern CA and is currently a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing candidate at New Mexico State University. Her works explore issues of abuse, trauma, and how recovery and resiliency allow people to remake themselves. Her poetry has previously appeared in MUSE and Pacific Review and is forthcoming in Indie Blu(e)’s “We Will Not Be Silenced” anthology.

***

For Love

I cover you in ink, the flavor harsh
on my eardrum. I eat words
ten syllables at once as we fuck
atop stacks of forbidden newsprint.

I found you spelled in grease
between the library stacks, the stains
Rorschach images of birds, of vines,
of mice that notch books, of their feces,
of tulips pressed
between pages—they had their time,
they shed petals one by one
like woodlice.

We have two words left. I
lock the pair away
behind my bared…