The Second Time I Wore a Rubber Dress Was in a Dream
by Medeia Starfire
Outside the aged house,
bricked porch, archaic tree,
I held a white balloon
on the fringe of neighborhood.
Clutched my string, kept it just outside.
My feet anchored in sidewalk, streets
wrapped around, stretched into city.
Something winged splintered, popped,
sent it down like an angel fallen.
I wore my torn, rubber dress,
traipsed, threw hot air around the ruins
as they crumbled to the ground.
Cornered
She felt litigious. She paced her kitchen, looked out the window. The fire inched closer. Calling for help didn’t work. When she picked up the telephone there was nothing on the other end. She packed her valuables in a small suitcase, made a list of what she left behind and how much it cost. The blackened sky closed in. As her house lost its smell, a thickness took over. She started to see things: her favorite teacup, the browned walls that held bleached pictures, the faded path where the floor creaked in the dining room. Dear lord, she mused as she stood at the door, to sit as a lidless eye, right in my backyard, to scatter the debris of your heart… The fire tasted her mimosa tree along the fence, moved in strips up her lawn. It was almost time to leave.
She finally walked to her bed, lay on top of the covers, placed her suitcase on her chest.
Ed. Note: Read more from Medeia Starfire in Dark Sky Magazine
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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.
