Submissions by pyrategurrll (Lauren Tivey)

In the hills, the coyotes chatter
and wail like hysterical women

under the full moon, descending
in the predawn to snuffle

the house foundation and pad
the wet grass as they roam

for cats. I hear them circle
and pant, but what they smell,

what scent they’ve caught,
is the rotting carcass

of our marriage. They wait,
patient for opportunity,

while we conduct our business
and ignore the silent, leering corpse.


This poem originally appeared in Red River Review:...

Sunday at the gun range.  I’ve just switched  
from a Glock .45 to a rifle, loading thin, shiny  
30-30s into the chamber.  The late September  
air floats with dandelion poufs, the sun drugged,  
 
golden.  There’s eight of us in ear muffs,  
lined up under the kiosk, various firearms  
splayed on the table.  We’re a small  
army, and this is clean, American fun—  
 
our focus, our will, the only church  
we understand.  I hit the paper dead-on,  
at 50 yards, kickback reverberating  
down my skeleton, raise and...

Weeping, she has knelt beside the coffin, knelt  
upon the pew, gone home to bow like a Geisha,  
opening the flower of her mouth to accept  
the hairy member of her husband—the day’s  
last quivering communion wafer.  Always,  
 
the ragged joints of subjugation, bending,  
scraping, against the carpets and wood,  
cement, and earth, like they were born  
for it, as each time it got harder and harder  
for her to rise.  This could be seen as early  
 
as childhood:  sitting quiet with dolls  
at her father’s feet...

I. Radio Parts

You don’t remember that night of cocktails
at the wharf bar and after, the climb up, up the stairs
to the roof, to look at stars from your tenement on the hill,
city and sea spread below, Jack Daniels flowing?

You were glad I hadn’t worn my cute skirt
and strappy heels, that I went like a treehouse
tomboy, cursing and giggling, the blinking red
lights from the towers framing us, two crazy kids.

You said radio waves controlled us—the government,
from the aldermen up to that smoked-ham-of-a-President— ...