An Excerpt from “Love Letters to Women I’ll Never Meet”
2012
Issue 6
Sara Scully
An Embarrassment of Pomegranates
Could you really be tricked,
into swallowing the pips of seasons?
It is the prerogative of gods,
I suppose,
to be slaves of the stories
who birthed them.
But how tightly can invisible chains bind?
Are you held for this long?
in unhappy confinement?
Or like the dream-king’s son
could you not help yourself,
could you not stop from looking back?
She’s making frogs
Like a crane on stone
I take a leap of faith
and find you in transitions.
Anywhere that isn’t a proper place,
anywhere that time breaks
and correlation is everything
is yours.
Somewhere in the in-betweens
we can lose ourselves in you
and in old leather
and in sour wines.
In your home
every color is a taste,
shark sounds swim,
and the music of insanity
curls like hydra tongues
behind teeth.
The Osprey
Selfless machines,
it seems,
can be built of meat and bone
with sinew
for drive chains
and toothy gears
that rip open and outward
even as they push forward.
Just exhale as you walk,
respiration through regurgitation
blood and apple bits:
both sticky,
both sweet.
Every breath
leaves your wet lips
like a cat’s scream
in a sweaty city night.
Michael Fiorilla is a writer from Northeastern Pennsylvania. His writing primarily deals with poking things people would normally find strange and uncomfortable. Whether or not he is actually a human being is still a subject of debate.