HORRIFIC CONFECTION by Juliet Cook - BlazeVOX

waiting, simmering, forehead beading
like a shattered mercury thermometer.
Sometimes she needs a cold compress.
Sometimes she needs smelling salts.
The way she wrings her wan hands and laments
and then suddenly goes limp;
attenuated fingers dangling.
The way she poses as a mannikin,
then attacks. Tears out her hair
& it was a wig & a small swarm
of silverfish scurry.
Sometimes she unclasps her spoony bracelets to display
the stale stage blood congealing on her wrists.
Oh those mercurial wrists.
Oh those swoony hissyfits.
Oh that hysterical uterus
must be sedated.
The way if you licked her inner thighs,
you would taste the seams
of vintage wallpaper, yellow
& ornate & feverish.
Rotting glue
dissolving on the tongue
like a foetid kiss.
The way she doles out another luxuriant spoonful
of her mesmerizing nostrum.
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