fever dream

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

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.

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