The light bent back, an insufferable lamp, beaming its palimpsest,
tomorrow is not another day. The vivid shoes shone
mathematical diagrams etched until the injured soul
would wear. Fair haired and such marker would have made this display—
The skin whiter, dark burn across the thigh. Rings left onto
depraved-off fingers slipping, the mahogany drawer set
matches the chair. One moment demon equates demon, errata.
This guise would be surface. A demon is scrubbed raw, made out
by mosaic inferences, an insubordination,
by planting candles on the table and watching them bleed.
That morning, beneath the hovering wooded areas,
misbehaving is meaningless under shelter. The arms
move, ignite the heart, and will its stigmata deeper than
the permanent markers strewn on the bedsheets. Not one
bed clothing. Flustering around the wooden floors in a thong
ample enough time alone, as an inn that is owned and safe
from public pandemonium. There is room left—the vapors are dressed.
Emily Shevenock has been a Roxbury Writers resident, received a Bennett Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and been nominated for Best of the Net in nonfiction. Her writing and art have appeared in Photoville New York, The Commonline Journal, Tiny Vices, Burn, The 2River View, Invisible City, Fatal Flaw, and Primavera. www.emilyshevenock.com
