a fever dream
or hallucination
of
a
woman
young
sliding
down
ward
in
to
dark
ness
until
she hits
awakens
just
as they pull her
from
the furnace
this is not hell?
they pour
what’s leftover
into an urn
wipe the spillage
onto
the floor like
dinner
crumbs
smack her down
onto a table
in a strange room
leave her
solitary
dusty
decades
later
I arrive
with
colourful carpets
paperback books
open windows let light in
the cracked blinds
fall apart
I know her name
whisper
remove her lid
look inside the marbled depths
flakes of soot
pale shredded bone
pop pop pop:
she begins to crackle
like ruins
of a bonfire
tendrils of smoke
slither
upward:
she’s a live wire,
sparking infinitely
sending up
small explosions
of powder.
I taste sulphur
inhale her
hold her in my hand
feel her heat
shudder
as she begins
to glow
The formatting for this poem will not be accurate on small screens, so we have made a PDF version available.
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Erica Viola lives in London, via Nebraska. Her previous work has appeared in Into the Void, Press Pause Press, and The Bookends Review, among others.