by Medeia Starfire

In my thirtieth year, death kept watch. I scrubbed the kitchen floor
till the man on the porch blended with the dark. The window grew teeth
so I pulled down the blinds, muffled the talk. I coordinated my closet.
Snakes looped and fell off the hangers. Bats swooped in the hall.
There were sharks in the bathwater, wolves under the bed. With the covers
pulled high over my head I felt long arms slide round from behind,
frost fingers, icy breath along my neck. Eat rat poison, he said into my dream,
lie down for the train, and the tracks unrolled. He trudged through the mud,
towed me along the ground by my hair.

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Medeia Starfire grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, and now resides in Seattle, Washington. Recently her work appeared in ellipsis… and is forthcoming in Confrontation. She also received a Jean Neustadt Award for Poetry in 2005. If she isn’t writing, she has a camera or a paintbrush in her hand.

Tagged as: Literature in the Media, New Literature Online, Poetry

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