I don’t recall who had that rose for Emily,
or if there even was a proper rose, but I do
remember she lived, in her life, with multiple
corpses. Now I know that things would have
gone wrong quickly on account of them being
above ground and not shot through
with plastic, but in my head, they were fully
dry shells that shed skin like talcum powder
and hadn’t quite stopped being human yet.
I found even that version sick, but have since
come to learn that the body won’t go shrivel up
like a raisin just because you tell it to, and it sure
won’t turn to dust. Instead, hours in, the skin
slips a little, loosening. Within days comes
a bloody frothing at the mouth. Then, all hell
breaks loose and still, you are reading
bedtime stories, talking, eating bean salad
beside her. Already dead so it can’t die further,
her hair fanned across the pillowcase until,
one day, you wake to find yourself asleep
beside an aspic, not a daughter, and you throw
open all the windows, invite the confiscation.
Katherine Fallon's poems have appeared in Juked, Apple Valley Review, Colorado Review, Meridian, Foundry, and Best New Poets 2019, among others. Her chapbook, The Toothmakers' Daughters, is available through Finishing Line Press. She teaches at Georgia Southern University, and shares domestic square footage with two cats and her favorite human, who helps her zip her dresses. Social media: Instagram @ghostelephants Website: www.katherinefallon.com
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